Building a DIY Music Server

[MarcelNL]

6 hours ago, ciccio1112 said:

HI MarcelNL, on the Asus c621 it is not necessary to disable any fans in the bios settings. You can easily work in fanless mode without doing anything.

one more question, I may be dealing with a faulty VGA monitor/cable...is the Q code showing 00 after succesfully booting?

The manual says 00 'not used' 

 

I seem unable to get anything on the screen, earlier today I was in the BIOS settings, but am not getting in anymore...'no signal' on screen and after clearing the CMOS I get no further...

 

 

[MarcelNL]

interesting difference... THANKS...will try load the BIOS from scratch, and then go find another VGA monitor and cable...the NVME SSD on the Mb has a tiny W10 loaded but i expect to be able to see the boot messaged on screen regardless of what OS is being/attempted to boot

[MarcelNL]

4 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

Do you have a BMC module on yours? The KVM is very handy for troubleshooting without needing to plug in a monitor. 

I did buy one, but took it off as I did not read up on how to access it yet...guess I need to do that now ;-)

[MarcelNL]

4 hours ago, drjimwillie said:

What is the BCM module, please. 
does it come with the sage motherboard?
Thank you

the BMC module is a tiny circuit board (something like 60 Euro) that connects to the Sage motherboard, it's intended as remote access/control for the motherboard through KVM ....don't even ask anything more, just regurgitating what I think I know ;-)  

I bought the module to be able to control the fans on the standard coolers but did not get around to do anything with it yet but it's indeed a great idea to be able to rule out VGA or boot issues.

(boot process takes looong)

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

https://dlsvr04.asus.com.cn/pub/ASUS/server/accessory/ASMB9/E12610_ASMB9-iKVM_UM_WEB.pdf

 

the BMC module is the tiny white stickered daughterboard, the Mb needs to have a pinout connector for it to work (of course)

[MarcelNL]

so far I'm unable to source the required software that ought to come with the ASMB9 module....grrrr

 

 

[MarcelNL]

I'm back in the room....not sure how, but I'm in the BIOS again, without the ASMB9 module. Guess it was a BIOS reset plus removing the BIOS battery and powering down the board completely.

What stays is that it seems to power down, without being able to see CPU temp or load it's hard to say if it's the MB, the CPU temp or simply the PSU being underdimensioned (400W so should IMHO be up to the task)

 

 

[MarcelNL]

something weird with the memory slot A, it shows the RDIMM as 0GB...now the thid one in a row....it may mean the CPU is not seated properly? or there are a few duds amongst the RDIMMs....or the MB has a defect..??

 

[MarcelNL]

a lot of booting and swapping RDIMM sticks...voltage listed for all rdimm slots looks OK, but slots A B and C show 0 GB.

one EPS cable and ATX connected, should IMO be plenty....

I had the mb working using the standard fan coolers, with 4 sticks in the suggested slots, so either the 4 RAM sticks that arrived later (exactly the same) are duds or there is something else wrong.....

[MarcelNL]

thanks all, it must be the CPU seating then...I already found it weird that the order 1-2-3-4 is th eonly instruction listed...I'll try again with screwing all 4 screws down gradually after checking the pins on the MB.

 

If that does not work I'll swap the CPU's to see if one of them has an issue...

[MarcelNL]

Brief update; Dual xeon server is up and running, a big THANKS to Exocer for all his support!

I suspect two RAM sticks to be faulty, both CPUs are recognized properly...

 

Meanwhile, while waiting for a gazillion reboots I adapted a second router for cascaded operation...that transformed the sound of the current server!

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

14 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/3063-pink-hq-minorityclean/?p=66847

 

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/3063-pink-hq-minorityclean/?p=64471

 

Exciting time ahead?

 

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2023/08/31/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-25941-canary-channel/

 

Apparently it won't expire until September

 

https://archive.org/download/win11-ltsc-2024-25941/25941.1000.230825-1352.rs_prerelease_CLIENT_ENTERPRISES_OEM_x64FRE_en-us.iso

awfully interesting, seriously! May I ask you kindly to write a few lines of thought to the links you post? For me it's a bit hard to follow your train of thought just from a few links.

[MarcelNL]

15 minutes ago, Antanas said:

Hello!
Help needed.
My music server: Motherboard MSI MAG B550M MORTAR, CPU AMD Ryzen9 3900 3.1 MGHz 64 MB L3, RAM 8 Gb single module, Euphony Stylus OS, Pink Faun SPDIF Bridge. I want to ask which is better, two 4 Gb modules or one 8 Gb module.

The CPU has two memory lanes, so I'd opt for 2 sticks, the MB manual will tell you which ones to best populate. 

[MarcelNL]

I'm for sure going to compare a few builds of W10/W11 to Daphile (which is based on LMS)....I still secretly hope for a public release of Taiko's XDMI-NMS for dual Xeon clone builds as the player program has more than a small impact on the resulting sound (aside from BIOS and OS settings and tweaks)

[MarcelNL]

they do interesting stuff at Alpha Audio

[MarcelNL]

5 minutes ago, Tatomek7 said:

I think preference between Euphony and Windows depends on hardware configuration. Currently I'm in the Win camp. Some time ago I was doing comparisons between Win LTSC and Euphony and I preferred Win LTSC, then I switched to Win 10, but when the Win 10 disk stopped working, I went back to Euphony and have been listening to it for the last 6 months.

 

Just 2 days ago I switched back to Windows 10. Euphony + Roon was on leaner side. Win 10 + Roon offers fuller sound with more profound bass, but to be honest the OS disks were different. Euphony/Roon was installed on Intel Optane 900p and Win + Process Lasso + Audiophile Optimizer + Roon was installed on Jcat M2 Femto SSD. Unfortunately my PCIE NVME adapter stopped to work, so M2 disk was installed directly on the SAGE 621 MB. M2 powered from MB sounded too rough, bass was too “squared”. With external power ( Sean Jacobs ARC6 DC3 and ordinary DC wire ) sound was softer and bass was more rounded. In fact, w/o external DC power I would prefer Euphony, as bass from M2 disk was too boomy to my taste.

 

Importantly, Windows consumes more power and my processors reaches a higher temperature. Euphony is much better in this respect.

I'm waiting for the M2 PCIE adapter to arrive, so the comparison will be more fair.

 

It's not just external power you are hearing in the mix, the NVME slot on the sage MB is connected via a controller, the PCIe adapter straight to the CPU

I bought two identical new NVME SSD sticks to compare OS in a relatively quick way....let the games begin...

[MarcelNL]

37 minutes ago, NewOldman said:

who criticized Femto Nvme ssd ?

"

"Unfortunately totally useless"

 

Zzyzx Revelation Femto SSD - bit by bit? - Alpha Audio (alpha-audio.net)

that they do interesting stuff does not mean we have to agree with all conclusions...they never put the OS on the femto drive

[MarcelNL]

doesn't Euphony use ALSA and a real time kernel? Always read (never tested) that Linux in principle has lower latency than Windows.

[MarcelNL]

I'm trying to install Daphile on one of the (identical) NVME disks I bought for the purpose of OS rolling (OCD to the max I guess), somehow the install does not get past the point where it starts looking at network connection.

I have both MB NIC's enabled assuming that daphile (basically Arch linux) should recognize them.....Windows 10 recognized them instantly and since folks have Euphony working I expect it to be a local glitch....will try a different port in the incoming router...

 

"waiting for network connection" 

 

Anyone with suggestions? 

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

.

[MarcelNL]

Figured out what the issue was; there were two...I had the NVME in the wrong PCI slot and was not getting connected with the remote control computer through the WIFI extender upstairs...all is well now.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

Adding an external WIFI access point (low power, slow connection) taking care of wifi for the dedicated control ipad also makes a nice difference. highly recommended!

more dynamic, organic, prat all of those high end words..betterer

 

 

[MarcelNL]

7 hours ago, drjimwillie said:

The Wi-Fi access point isn’t connected to your audio server is it?
 

Are you saying that you added a Wi-Fi access point to your home network and because the connection is better to your iPad, that the sound on your stereo is better?

 

thank you 

I have added a secon router for audio, the wifi access point is connected to that in order for me to be able to control the music server which is connected via glass fiber.

[MarcelNL]

I hate that tiny edit window...

 

It's most likely the chatter inside the router CPU going down due to switching WIFI off in the router, or EMI from the WIFI circuit inside the router coming down...I already had an external wifi access point on the first router and it had the same effect there, the effect on the second router is way larger.

[MarcelNL]

first time ever I heard of Eunhasu...so it'ls a Linux distro, what differentiates it from all other Linux versions (Euphony, Audio Linux, Daphile etc....) From my brief experience the differences between Linux versions are fairly small.

 

 

https://docs.sotm-audio.com/doku.php?id=en:eunhasu:installing_x86