BIOS help to get to ASDM7EC DSD256 with HQPe & i9-9900K?

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3 hours ago, barrows said:

Setup:

 

Gigabyte Aorus Z390 I Pro Mobo, 32 Gb Hyper X Predator RAM, i9-9900K, HDPlex 400 watt power supply, actively fan cooled.

 

XMP profile 1 selected, and "optimized defaults" in BIOS

 

running SonicTransporter (linux) OS + Roon + HQPe

 

Results: no problem for DSD 256 OS with ASDM7 or ASDM5EC and poly-sinc ext2, but ASDM7EC has a dropout every 10 seconds or so, with two cores running 95%-100%

 

As HQPe running ASDM7EC only really requires two cores to do a lot of work, I am doubting power availability is an issue, but perhaps there are clocking settings which could allow these two cores to run faster?  I am a total novice when it comes to BIOS, and am a bit nervous about going outside of "normal" parameters.  I also have seen that others with similar set ups appear to have no problems running HQPe+Roon at ASDM7EC to DSD256.  I have heard some suggest that sometimes mini itx mobos are sometimes limited by standard BIOS settings?

No network issues here, this is definitely a server limitation. 

Hi Barrows, I am not familiar with Aorus Bios but it should be similar to ASUS which I do know. First go in and find Performance Mode and activate it. If that works then you are done. If that does not work then you can increase the clock speed. This is done using two settings. The first is the Base Clock and the second is the Multiplier. You have a K chip so you have a lot of leeway. Put the Multiplier at 40 first and the Base Clock at 100. This will give you a 4.0 Ghz clock speed. This is well below the 9900K top speed. Then increase the Multiplier slowly in small increments. First try 101, then 101.5, and up until you get a stable playback. If you can monitor the core temps that would be helpful. I use Speccy on Win 10 but on your OS I am not sure how you can do it. You want to make sure that the core temps are not much over 80 C for long periods. You can also let the Bios set the speed of each core using its Turbo mode or you can make all cores run at the same speed using the Sync All Cores setting. If Turbo works use that as a few cores can go higher in that mode. I find that I like the Sync setting but it will generate more heat. If you push too hard the system may not boot and you will have to back off some. With a 9900K you should get stable playback well before then.

 

Hope this helps and let me know how it goes.

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2 minutes ago, barrows said:

@bobflood, Yeah, I do not think the Aorus has a simple "performance mode" in BIOS, but I'll look again.  Plenty of complex settings for overclocking of course, and power, and such, all are set to "auto" as defaults.  There's also the advanced setting for the Turbo mode, I could have a look in there and see what the options are, perhaps "enhanced turbo"?  Although some folks say this can create a voltage problem to the processor.  I have no way to see processor temps during use, the only thing I can monitor in the SonicOrbiter OS is the CPU core usage.  It seems to run fairly cool when attempting to ASDM7EC DSD 256, with the fan not working very hard, so I feel I have plenty of cooling (Noctua radiator/fan setup).

I wish I was familiar with your Bios. I agree with the suggestion to HQP OS on a USB stick just to make sure it is not a problem with SO.

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9 hours ago, barrows said:

@bobflood, Yeah, I do not think the Aorus has a simple "performance mode" in BIOS, but I'll look again.  Plenty of complex settings for overclocking of course, and power, and such, all are set to "auto" as defaults.  There's also the advanced setting for the Turbo mode, I could have a look in there and see what the options are, perhaps "enhanced turbo"?  Although some folks say this can create a voltage problem to the processor.  I have no way to see processor temps during use, the only thing I can monitor in the SonicOrbiter OS is the CPU core usage.  It seems to run fairly cool when attempting to ASDM7EC DSD 256, with the fan not working very hard, so I feel I have plenty of cooling (Noctua radiator/fan setup).

I looked up the Enhanced Turbo Mode and that is probably what you need. It just allows the 9900K to operate to its max Intel allowed capabilities. It isn't really overclocking in the sense of going past the manufacturer max allowed. It is similar to what ASUS calls Performance Mode.

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23 minutes ago, barrows said:

OK, tried a couple of things:

 

Set Intel Turbo Boost to "enabled" (default is "auto"), this made no difference

 

Tried setting Multicore performance to "enhanced" (default is "Auto"), but this popped the processor voltage up to 1.4 V, which made me a bit nervous, so I set back to "Auto"

 

Given that Jussi suggests that with this hardware I should easily be achieving EC7 to DSD 256 with "optimum defaults" and without any need for over clocking, I am beginning to think the problem is with the implementation and/or settings of HQPe with the Sonic Orbiter OS?  @agillis, do you have any ideas?

 

Running fine with ASDM5EC DSD 256, with two cores around 90%, but fully stable for all incoming rates.  Just cannot achieve ASDM7EC DSD 256.

 

I know everyone will suggest trying another OS, but I do not have a lot of time for this right now, and would need to do a lot of figuring out to understand how to run another OS.

Did it work with the Enhanced Multicore setting? If so use it. This a K series chip and you have active cooling so you are probably being more conservative than need be. You could also just load standard Win 10/64 Home and worry about tracking the issue down when you have time.

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57 minutes ago, barrows said:

OK, so, I updated BIOS to latest version, which has improvements/updates to the Vcore levels.  Set XMP 1, set multicore in BIOS to "enhanced" which is basically a 5 GHz overclock.  Yes, the fan runs a little harder and the server consumes a bit more power (I have a wattmeter on the input still below 100 W), but still dropouts with EC7-DSD 256.  The only conclusion I can make is that there is some limitation with how HQPe is implemented with SO OS, as there is no way this should not work I can think of with these settings.

I do not have anymore time to mess with this now, and do not have the experience necessary to install, configure, and run other OSs.  Ultimately it looks like that is what I am going to have to do, with some help from someone experienced with linux and HQPe setups.

ASDM5EC sounds very good and plays perfectly reliably, but I have heard 7, and it is even better here...

You are right in that it should play just fine with those settings. This does not reflect well on SO OS or on Andrew's ability to configure it for your hardware. It is obvious that the multi-core configuration needs to be modified for your hardware. Only you can work with him to get that right.

 

In the interim, if it was me facing this, I would just load Win 10 and HQP Desktop and be done with it. It would only take about an hour.

 

Good luck with it.

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1 hour ago, barrows said:

In Andrew's defense I must point out that this build was a special, custom project for me, done as a favor, and should not reflect on the products which offers to his normal customers, which are all optimized for the hardware he provides, and which work perfectly as advertised.  He does not normally use the i9-9900K processors.

Barrows,

 

I am not saying his other stuff isn't good because it is good (I own several SO pieces myself). What I am saying, and keep in mind that this is a public forum, is that I and probably a lot of others following this thread will conclude that on this project he let you down. At the minimum he should have updated your BIOS, configured your BIOS for a high demand app (which HQP at 7EC/256 is) and then checked and configured the HQP Embedded multi-core configuration file for the i9 9900K and then lastly tested it and made any further necessary changes. It is apparent that he assembled the pieces, loaded his stock firmware and sent it out.

 

It has been painful to see you go through this ordeal after spending a lot of time and money knowing that it could have and should have been avoided. It should have worked for you out of the box.

 

At least you know it can work and you have some options.

 

Again, good luck and we all hope you get it working soon. 7EC/256 is amazing and with your setup you should be able to get almost all the filters to work.

 

Bob

 

 

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1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Likely it is...

 

Jussi, Any way that you could remote in to @barrows and fix this? I am wondering if the problem might also be the distro or kernel that SGC has used to build SO. The reason I wonder is that over time some others here have reported problems trying to do 7EC/256 on the i9 machine that SGC sells commercially. Usually those reports were when trying to run Roon concurrently but maybe it is related to this problem. It could also be that the i9 SGC uses on those machines is not a high enough spec but SGC is opaque on which i9 variant they use. This might be a problem worth looking into as something is not right here. The way he has the BIOS currently set that machine should not be having any problem at all and he should be able to also do most all filters at 7EC/256.

 

Anyway, just a thought for you to consider.

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1 minute ago, barrows said:

OK, it boots into HQPe now, but Roon Core has vanished.  So I am bricked here.

Can you run Roon on another machine for the test?

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9 minutes ago, barrows said:

No, and that would take hours and hours to configure, scan a new library, etc.  

Roon core went away because it was part of SO OS. When you booted to HQP OS/HQPe the only thing that can run on HQP OS is HQPe. You will need to run Roon on another machine and tell Roon on that machine where to find HQPe by entering the ip address of the HQPe  machine in the add HQP dialog of Roon. You can get the ip from your router. Don't worry about your library right now, just use Tidal or Qobuz for the test.

 

BTW, I can run Roon and HQP Desktop concurrently and get ASDM7EC/256/Closed Form Fast filter using Win 10/64 on a passively cooled machine with a i5 8400 and ASUS Z370I. It did take some careful BIOS adjustment and Windows tweaking to get it to work but the CPU load is about 50% and the core temps stay below 80 C.

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23 minutes ago, barrows said:

Thanks guys, but this is problematic.  I do not use Tidal or Quobuz.  Plus running Roon on another machine pretty much invalidates the test, as the goal is to run everytuhgin on one machine, which should the hardware should be totally capable of anyway.

I have Roon on my laptop and can test with a small group of files, but am not sure what this will tell me anyway.

Try the test with your laptop. If it works then the problem is in SO configuration. If it doesn’t then there is something else going on but we can’t know unless you run the test. If it is SO then you can use Win 10 to run both until the problem can be traced.

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19 minutes ago, barrows said:

Works fine bypassing SO by running HQP OS booting from a USB stick, ASDM7EC DSD 256, so clearly the problem is with how HQPe is implemented with SO, @agillis?  Serving files from Roon to HQPe from my laptop.

This is without any trick BIOS settings, just XMP 1 and WiFi disabled, all other settings at defaults.

 

The unfortunate news is that this gives me no simple path forward which I am capable of achieving.  I assume this means I need to load a different OS (Audio Linux, etc) and HQPe, and Roon, and configure everything myself.  Windows is not an option for me.

 

Oops, playback just paused, i was able to re-start, perhaps this because I am now in trial mode.

Great! Can you load Roon to your NAS. If so, you can just stay with HQP OS for now.

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15 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

At least we now know it is somewhere on the software stack. So we can immediately forget about toying with hardware anymore.

 

 

Minimal Ubuntu Server 20.04 install is pretty straightforward. And then adding needed packages on it. This is what I use on my servers that have something bigger than HQPlayer OS.

 

Jussi, I would bet that the problem lies with Roon and HQPe running concurrently on SO. They are not sharing resources well. If he runs just HQPe alone from SO and Roon on the laptop and it works that would narrow it down. Give that a try Barrows.

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51 minutes ago, barrows said:

Bingo!

Thanks so much Jussi and Andrew.  Updated SO with the new HQPe build, and now no issues with SO, Roon, and HQPe all running on my server and ASDM7EC to DSD 256.  Additionally, 2 cores are running at around 75% now, which is less than what they were doing with ASDM5EC previously.

Not running any special settings in BIOS, just XMP 1, and defaults.

 

Oh yeah, and sound quality is fantastic with my Bricasti M3 (discrete DSD converter)!

Very happy to hear that you have it working and that you are happy with it.

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On 2/15/2021 at 11:04 PM, bobflood said:

Very happy to hear that you have it working and that you are happy with it.

I would be curious as to which filters you can use and which don’t work with your i9 9900K.

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1 hour ago, barrows said:

Which would you like me to try?

Some of the hard ones like Sinc L and Closed Form 16 M. I am curious if a GPU is needed with that chip. Thanks 

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9 hours ago, barrows said:

You mean in concert with ASDM7EC to DSD 256?  I am pretty sure that would require GPU offload for the filter.  Most using i9-9900K have said with ASDM7EC one needs to use the two stage filters to have enough processing power for the modulator, but I'll give a few things a go when i have time.

Thanks, I am just curious. You should be able to use most of the easy non-2s filters with that chip and maybe some like sinc S and closed form. I can use closed form fast on my i5 8400. Only do what you have time for. I will be replacing my server and was hoping not to need a GPU.   Thanks

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19 minutes ago, barrows said:

Quick little update:  I had success running poly sinc ext (not "2") with this set up to ASDM7EC and DSD 256, also worked with SincM ASDM7EC (but only 44.1 base rate inputs of course, my DAC does not do 48 k DSD rates).  I did not test exhaustively, but it does appear that now with the newer version of HQPe Jussi distributed to Small Green Computer for use with their Sonic Orbiter linux OS one can try some of the non 2 style filters with EC modulators and DSD 256 oversampling without GPU offloading.  My machine is I9-9900K, 32 Gb Hyper-X Predator RAM running Roon+Sonic Orbiter+HQPe out to a Sonore Signature Rendu SEoptical as NAA.  I have a Noctua fan based cooling set up and the server is in my workroom, not the living room where the audio system is.

Thanks for the update. I am going to replace my server in the fall when the 12th Gen Intel i9 chips come out and like you I will do a fan cooled system. I should be able to everything I want to do without using a GPU but I can always add one later if they ever become available at list prices. I was going to do a water cooled system but that is more than I want to take on and the i9 coming in the fall is a 10nm chip so it should run a bit cooler. It also has a lot more cores and a higher turbo speed so it should be ideal for HQP Desktop which is what I will use. I will post about it later this year when I get it.  Thanks Again!