Building a DIY Music Server

[drjimwillie]

I have been doing my homework since I asked the question about the  Asus HYPER M.2 X16 GEN 4 CARD Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4 Card (PCIe 4.0/3.0)

from the posted FAQ, I found this chart interesting. 

I have been accumulating parts for this build for a while, and I was worried that I may not have purchased the correct motherboard.
So I dug it out of the pile 

 

it looks like I did😎

I also checked the specs to make sure that it has 48 lanes. It does.

What I find interesting is that it tells you which PC i.e. slot to use depending on which CPU you want it associated with and it tells you the limits of how many cards it will read. 
I thought this info would be good to share  

[drjimwillie]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:28 PM, di-fi said:

Good news for Intel 660p owners regarding low power consumption:

 

Intel 660P (1TB) vs. SK Hynix P31 Gold (2TB)

50GB Copy - Average Power Consumption: 2.31 vs. 2.28 Watts (equal)

Idle power consumption also seems equal with ASPM/LPM enabled. (If you know how to/can set that up). ASPM/LPM disabled doubles Intel 660p's power consumption.

 

Note: I assume the more power consumed the more heat produced. I ignore other factors in this comparison.

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ssd-660p-qlc-nvme,5719-2.html

I am wondering about peoples opinion on which M.2 to use?

 

Larry’s SK Hynix Gold P31 or the Intel 660p?

Larry, did you listen to both of them? 
 

Then it seems like the question is, does anyone know how to enable the ASPM/LPM. 
 

So I looked into it:

ASPM is active state power management 

Here is what I found, although it is on windows 11

 

[drjimwillie]

LPM is link state power management

 

 

although I am not quite sure how applicable it is because it seems to be a setting for laptops.  

 

[drjimwillie]

You have to love all of this excitement.  
We really are a bunch of kids and finding out that Santa Claus might really exist is exciting. 
 

finding out how this stuff works is one thing but, the other thing is finding out where you fit into it personally. 
 

I am in to DIY because I cannot afford these Uber expensive products but, overtime with a lot of sweat equity. Maybe I will get close. 
 

The comment that stuck out to me, the most was that by using the QSA LAN cable and the QSA LAN Jitter made the inexpensive product sound like the Uber expensive product. When I looked at the prices of the QSA products, I realized that they are out of my reach, except for some of the fuses and maybe the LAN cable??  But my gut feeling is that all of the other treated cables were already in the system before the LAN cable was added??  And the effect was cumulative. Thinking like a scientist, how is this even possible? I can understand power cables, and signal cables, all working toward the instantaneous supply of power to the speakers, but the LAN cable?? I do own a Sablon audio ethernet cable, so I can someone understand. 
But, what is this QSA LAN Jitter, I cannot find any information on it. 
 

Would I even know the difference if I heard it. Sometime, I don’t know if what I am hearing is confirmation bias, or if it is real. I trust all of you and I learn from your experiences and I try to replicate what you do. Sometimes I just trust.  
 

Now onto things that I can somewhat understand.  Last night I improved the grounding to my main panel, and I believe it improved the sound.

 

I have (2) 6AWG cables running 220V from a 60 amp breaker (6AWG ground in a separate conduit), to a 115 pound powersure 800 transformer which drops the 220 V down to 110V, the power from the transformer runs 5 feet to my custom plug mold with Hubble industrial outlets, which have (2) 10AWG hot and (2) 10 AWG Neutral, and a  10 AWG ground, to each duplex outlet. 
 

I have never liked the way my main electrical panel was grounded. It has a good size ground connected to the Watermain. It has a 8AWG wire, connecting to a ground rod, and then to the gas hook up.  It has always seemed undersized to me.
 

now, a slight glimpse into the psychosis of an audiophile. 
Background story: the other day my daughter dropped her earbud down the drain of the sink in the only bathroom that I have not remodeled. When I took the trap off it disintegrated. I have now been back to the plumbing store three times as each piece of plumbing I have touched has disintegrated. With a bathroom, full of tools and supplies, my wife said to me, why don’t you call a plumber, you hate plumbing. All of us DIY people know the Folly and pain of such a comment Ha ha. The bright side is that during one of my trips past the electrical supply house I bought a 10 foot copper ground rod, and some 6AWG wire. Once again, not able to continue my plumbing project because the tool I purchased to remove the drain did not fit into it, I was at a standstill. When my wife suddenly left the house to go to a dentist appointment, I grabbed my large right angle drill and drilled a hole through the foundation. I did not want to deal with the questions that would have been asked from all of that noise I was making. 
 

I hooked up the ground and went to listen to some music.

 

It sounded more immediate. The dynamics sounded better. The base sounded more dimensional. Was I imagining it? Was it confirmation bias? I don’t know. I was excited and I liked it. 
This brings me back to the point I made earlier, where I’ll trust all of you. Because I am not sure if I can trust my own ears.

 

I could go back to the panel and disconnect the ground, but it was a bit difficult to install, and I am not sure if what ever nasty’s were dissipated would immediately accumulate again?

 

I will run another ground cable out to the existing ground rod. I am not sure if I should hook the two ground rods together? Or if I should daisychain another ground rod to the new one I put in?

 

I have to trust my own ears, because I do not have any friends to give a rats ass about my stereo system.  It is a bit of a quandary.
 

this brings me back to the QSA, I bought one of their fuses and I liked it over my stock fuse. I trust what the others here are hearing in their systems. 
 

I don’t want to be product bashing with this next question, but where I start to lose some of my confidence in QSA is when they put jewels on the outside of their receptacles. 
Does anyone have any idea how these jewels could be contributing to the product?

 

[drjimwillie]

11 hours ago, flowcharts said:

Just for fun & some extra practice -- too many changes to comment on sound quality, but someone else should give it a shot.

It looks great.

Will you Please tell us more about it?
Which USB card is it?

Did you install the carbon fiber and the heat sink?
Is the carbon fiber for vibration isolation, and heat dissipation?

 

[drjimwillie]

The SK Hynix P31 2TB is selling for $119 on Amazon, that is about $100 off the regular selling price.
 

[drjimwillie]

I hope everyone is having fun with their projects and enjoying some good music.

 

I am building the DIY Taiko Server with the sage motherboard in the DIY Taiko case.  I am also building the unregulated power supply and I have the big Taiko Cap, to save space.   I ordered two of the Hi-Cut B custom chokes, which I see are about to ship.  I have not assembled the Taiko case, because I am waiting to see how creative people need to be to get these two chokes to fit with the sage motherboard. My thinking is, if the case is disassembled, it will be easier to put on my drill press to drill, extra holes, to mount the chokes. 
 

I am hoping people will help me think through the alternative of mounting the power supply externally. Am I understanding correctly, that the wisdom is that it is better to mount the power supply in with the motherboard?  I am wondering why this is correct? 
 

The downside of mounting the PSU internally are the heat and the EMI.

 

The downside of mounting the PSU externally is the two extra connectors and the extra length of wire.  

Are there ways to get around the downside of the external PSU?  Do we need to use better connectors? Do we need to use more wire? would a four, five, six pin connector be helpful? I am using the Mundorf Angelique wire. Is it better to add wire to individual pins, rather than double up the wire coming off of one pin?
(should I use the connectors to facilitate a ground wire between the server and the PSU?)

 

I have one of the older HDPlex - H5, cases left over from my CAPS pipeline build, that I could use to house the PSU. (I have to see if that case is tall enough to fit the big cap or if I might need to mount it sideways.)

 

Thank you,

Will

 

[drjimwillie]

Hi Marce,

thank you for the reply.

Do you think it will be much of an issue to get these two big chokes to fit?

[drjimwillie]

I see what you were saying about relocating, the Rectifier and the ATX will free up a huge amount of space. (thanks for the picture.)

If we add the shielding the rest of the way around the motherboard, like they do in the actual Taiko chassis, that will give us opportunities/space to mount the ATX and the rectifier.

 

do you think we need to worry about EMI from the chokes? I would think yes because the coils must throw some kind of magnetic field. aren’t we supposed to mount them perpendicular to each other so the fields do not interact?

[drjimwillie]

15 hours ago, SK8 said:

This is my own build to have Nenon V3 plus Sage 621e in a single box. Slot one is long enough for a full size PCI, reserved for the Taiko DAC card in future.

That really looks fantastic. Congratulations! I would really love to hear it.
 

Will you please tell me where you sourced the copper plates?

 

I had stumbled into a source for the copper plates a while ago, but I have forgotten where I found them.
 

does anyone know where to source copper plates in the US, please?

 

I am going to need them for my DIY Taiko chassis/Sage build. I am going to start putting that together soon. (I am almost to the painting stage of my cabinets which needs to precede it.)

 

I am hoping to see someone solve the build, including the monstrous custom chokes. 😳😁

 

thanks in advance😎

[drjimwillie]

5 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

anyone delidded the Xeon to apply better thermal paste? 🤪

What is delidded , please?

 

Do you use a NM torque wrench to tighten your CPUs?
 

in the Taiko DIY chassis, there was documentation that specified how to fasten the CPU. There was a bolt pattern to follow, and it gave a specific  torque. 
 

i’m trying to determine if I have to buy a very small, digital torque wrench.

[drjimwillie]

@AngeloVRA

what tool do you use to crimp the Molex connector’s, please?

 

Do you have a different picture of the terminal going into the connector body, so that you can see the tab orientation to the connector? I see in the picture that the connector hole has a flat bottom and an arched top. Does the tab point towards the arched top?

 

thank you

[drjimwillie]

On 8/6/2023 at 6:49 PM, MarcelNL said:

meanwhile I found someone who'll probably delid the Xeons for me

(no interest in finding out how that works in detail)

why not go balls to the wall when doing stuff ;-)

Hi Marce

I have a couple more questions about delidding, please?

 

I hope it is not inappropriate for me to ask this question here, but how much are you paying to have somebody delid one of your CPUs. I can send you a PM if you think it is more appropriate. 
 

Also, what type of guarantees do you get that your CPUs will not be harmed in the process?

 

Am I correct in assuming that this will void the warranty on the CPU?

 

The numbers for reducing the operating temperature of the CPU looked very promising. However, personally, I worry about the risk. This CPU cost about $500 each. 
 

The CPU are the last components that I need to purchase for my build. I am waiting until I have everything else ready, just in case there is an issue with the CPU and I need to return it.

 

are a lot of enthusiast doing this?

I look forward to your assessment. 
 

[drjimwillie]

Greetings, music, loving friends😎

 

I am going to start my Sage MB build in the Taiko case soon. I am going to be using the Taiko Rectifier, the big CAP and the Martin Mug chokes.

I have a feeling that I am going to need to drill some custom holes for the standoffs. I want to buy a tap and die set for the stand off screws, but I am having trouble identifying, the correct tap and die. I see that the thread for the standoff is #6-32, but the tap and die sets are not specified this way. Can anyone help me find the right tools for this work, please?

also, what size drillbit do I use to drill the hole, please?

is the bottom of the DIY Taiko case thick enough for tapped screws?  I am betting that the side walls are. 
 

has anyone else built a server with these components yet? I am hoping to see examples from others.

I still have a bit of time before I get started, but I will post pictures as I try to make decisions.

 

thank you 

 

I hope you all are enjoying some good music🎶

 

DJW

[drjimwillie]

22 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

a decent tap and die set will have markings indicating for what size and thread they are and usually some info on what drill to use.

 

My experience is that a drill press and GOOD drill and drill bit are paramount to get a straight hole in the place you want it, use a center point tool to position the holes and cutting oil for drilling AND tapping.  Do not get cocky and twist too far in one movement, always twist back to allow cuttings to remove or find yourself facing a broken tap in the hole....

 

Likely YT has video's on how to do this, it's not difficult but can be tricky so doing some practice runs as mentioned is a great idea.

 

 

Thank you both for the great advice. 
 

I have been thinking about tapping holes into the Taiko DIY Chassis from the day I received it. The first thing I wanted to do, was put it together, to see what it looks like. Then I realized that I will probably have to mount things to the sides and bottom, and I realized that a fully assembled case would be very hard to put onto my drill press. Especially with how big and heavy that case is. I had to drill some new holes in my server to get the Taiko ATX to fit, and balancing it on the drill press was a bit precarious and scary. So the Taiko case is currently still in the bubble wrap. (except for the parts I needed to pull out to inspect if “the bracket” was correctly drilled and tapped.) soon it will be unwrapped, and I will lay out all the parts to see how they need to be attached.  I cannot imagine that I will be attaching those monster Martin Mug chokes to the side wall or the big Taiko CAP, but you never know. Or, I may need to rig a second level for the Taiko ATX. I would like to be able to fit in copper plates for shielding, but with good planning, I may be able to use that to my advantage. I would like to think it’s not going to be as tight as I am imagining it, but considering we have not seen any successful builds with those giant chokes, it will probably be an interesting puzzle. 
 

The advice on tapping threads is super useful. It made me remember when I was in high school in the 70s, we had shop classes, Electrical, small engines, automotive, air conditioning and refrigeration, and a machine shop. The mention of the cutting oil brought me back to cutting inside and outside threads in cold roll steel.  (When the teacher wasn’t looking, we would make pipes for smoking. I had one pipe that had two big chambers, and could be broken down into three smaller pipes. Probably not a good idea to be smoking through cold, rolled steel, but we were young and dumb. Ha ha.)

It is interesting, all of the accumulated knowledge we have. It helps us to be “handy”. I tell people being handy is a curse. My wife says she is a construction widow.
Gavin, thank you for the mention of the cutting compound, I had never heard of it, I looked it up and now I know about cutting paste. It looks a lot less messy and then cutting oil. 
 

I will post pictures as I progress, to get advice.

 

Thank you, Will 

[drjimwillie]

21 hours ago, BCRich said:

I highly suggest you assemble the entire chassis before you start to add components. I had major issues with things lining up. Especially the back plate.

Good Luck and cheers!

Mike

Do you have any advice for assembling the Chassis, please?

 

I remember some issues because people installed things upside down. Some holes are threaded, some holes are not threaded….

I know that planning things three dimensionality will be much easier with it assembled.

 

I am worried about parts that will be overly difficult to disassemble, if they are connected to multiple other parts. 

 

(thanks for being a community where I can ask an Uh-Duh question)😁

[drjimwillie]

@AngeloVRA

that is a very ambitious project with great results, congratulations.

 

Those are very impressive temperature drops at full load.  I wonder what the results would have been if you had installed liquid metal below the lid, replaced the lid and then put liquid metal between the lid and the CPU cooler. It certainly would have made the project much easier.😳

 

I have not seen any studies that show the decrease in temperature if you reinstall the CPU cooler with or without the lid, have you?

 

I wonder if Taiko does either one of these in the Extreme?

 

I would like to see an example of someone delidding the Sage in the Taiko DIY Chassis.  Is anyone considering trying it?
 

The CPUs are the last item I need to purchase for my Build. Considering this is my first server project, I fear all of the things that could go wrong, and feel that having a warranty on the CPUs removes one unknown, which gives me a feeling of security.

 

however, used Xenon 4210s can be purchased for about half price, which, along with perceived performance gains is an incentive. But, I do not see myself building the entire project, and installing the CPUs, to test that they are working and then tearing it down to delid, the CPUs, because I do not have experience with any of that work.

 

I did purchase the digital torque wrench to tighten the CPU to the 1.2nm, indicated by Taiko, so that should take a little of the guesswork out of that part of the project.

 

hm……. Very inspiring project.

[drjimwillie]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:48 PM, littlej0e said:

 

I picked up two of these during a similar sale a while back. The main reason I did so is they have significantly lower power consumption compared to nearly every other similarly spec'd M.2 drive on the market. However, this may have been a poor choice as one of the key design aspects of the C621E build is not restricting power the same way an ultra low power build would.

 

Guess I'll find out soon enough. 

 

 

 

Littlej0e - how did you end up liking the Hynix M.2 drives? Did you compare them to anything else?
 

What operating system did you settle on, please?

[drjimwillie]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:20 PM, littlej0e said:

 

I struggled to hear any differences whatsoever between the Hinx and Sabrent 2TB drives I tested. That doesn't mean there aren't any. Just that I personally couldn't hear any on my rig.

that is good to hear. I should be very happy with the Hinx M.2 I have.

 

 

For context, I am primarily a headphone listener with occasional 2-channel use and currently running Windows Server 2019 with Audiophile Optimizer and Process Lasso (I'm playing around with Win 10 IoT Ent 2021, but having trouble with CPU recognition and pinning in combination with Process Lasso). Thus far, I've tried Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 10 IoT Ent 2021, AudioLinux, EuphonyOS, and a bunch of other Linux OSs I won't to mention as to not misdirect people. Here are some take-aways:

Windows IoT is the operating system that SEETEETOU was talking about. Can we assume that, because you’re working with it, do you like the best?

You have shared some awesome configuration information with us. I look forward to your impression and the impact as you are able to remove processes

Windows Configurations is one of the things I am worrying about, working with two CPUs in the Sage  

I will probably start with Euphony, because that is what I use now. I know how to assign processes to processors.
 

 

On 9/22/2023 at 4:20 PM, littlej0e said:

• Intel Optane 900 PCIe drives are legit. Running OSs from the Optane universally sounded better than the Hinx and Sabrent drives, as well as Ramroot modes in both AudioLinux and EuphonyOS (perhaps this is due to lower latency and/or the RAM used?).

that is reassuring to hear.

I have my OS on the Optane 900 now. 

• Microsoft uses very similar code bases between versions of Windows (desktop, server, IoT, etc). So, in theory, the "skinniest" Windows OS configured for as close to real time performance as possible should yield the best sound quality. Again, in theory...
• CPUs tended to run much cooler with EuphonyOS and AudioLinux, in some cases by 10-15C. I still haven't figured out why exactly, but I suspect this is due to the Linux OSs being much less bloated in general with subsequently fewer process calls. I water cool my server (...because I'm stupid), so this doesn't really matter to me. But it may be an important data point for those using or building passively cooled servers. 
• There are notable sonic gains to be had running headless (non-GUI) versions of Windows. Come to think of it, this is probably an "easy button" way to get started with optimizing Windows. But it will heavily increase the complexity of deployment, configuration, and management to the point you might be better off optimizing the GUI version in the first place. 
• if you are running headless, are you using a IPVM, like they do when they service the extreme remotely?
• I feel a little confused when people talk about running headless. All of my servers have been headless, but if I plug a monitor in, I was usually able to access the bios. I guess I will understand soon because the XEON 4210 do not have a GPU.
• It is fairly easy to sonically outperform Roon. I was pleasantly surprised by Foobar2000 Version 2 and HQPlayer 5. They probably don't hold a candle to TAS, but still thought it was worth mentioning. 

Hope this helps...

 

- lj

lj, thank you so much for that informative reply! Really well written also.

You sound like you really have been having some fun.

 

Hi, put my reply into the body of your message, above, in bold. 

I hope you don’t mind.
 

I hope you are enjoying some good music

[drjimwillie]

5 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

Just a matter of getting rid all the junk that we don't even need. Quite a few of us already figured out how to get things done, now the question is are you ready to dive right in and join us?

Once I finish the hardware part of the projects, I am working on, the software will be the final frontier.  
knowing that this is the software that is on the extreme, and the fact that I am building an extreme clone, I would like to be able to make this software work.

 

we are not just getting rid of the junk that we don’t need.
The Sage motherboard has two CPU. The end goal is to separate and assign the player processes to its own CPU.  
How is that done with this software and is it extremely difficult?

[drjimwillie]

You guys are extremely convincing. 😉

I just purchased the Saligny Power GaN. 
 

It looks like now I’m going to need a board to mount the cap that goes with the Rectifier.

it looks like all the cool guys are doing it. 
 

rob and Mike, will you please give me advice on how to order a PCB board?
 

Marce - are you going make a board to mount yours with your Cap?  maybe I can order one with you?

 

although, I know nothing about this, so I don’t know if it’s prudent to order a board locally?

 

thank you, Will

[drjimwillie]

Hi Marce - good morning. 
I was thinking about the traces in the PCB being very small, compared to all of the other wiring. I was going to ask if we can go point to point and just hard wire the cap into the circuit.  I was thinking that I could just flip the cap with the tiny pins upside down?

Will you please share pictures of what you are doing?

 

I bought one cap holder to hold the Duland bypass, I was thinking that I should have purchased two?😐

maybe I can strap them together?

[drjimwillie]

How are you getting mechanical connection between that big wire and that tiny pin, before you solder it?  You cannot twist them together.
Are you using a crimp and then soldering?

when you get a chance, can you show me an example, please?

 

how are you using the nano tape?

Do you have a brand that you like best?

[drjimwillie]

I’m sorry, Mr. PCB🥲

sometimes, people speak loudly from a perch of ignorance. 
 

what is the process to get a custom PCB like yours, please?

 

My shielding came in today. It looks like I have a little bit of room to work in the Rectifier area.
 

take a look at how much larger this bypass Is then the AG.

 

 

 

[drjimwillie]

Hey Mike, 

Thank you for the suggestion. 

what do you mean, rotate the chokes 180°?

 

could you sketch it for me, please?