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Re: More experiments...

Post by christian »

David Neel wrote: I'm also going to try Kazoo Server - ThomasOK thought Songcast was better then Asset, and Christian has not yet reported back, so I'll try it myself.
Well the thing is that I am using Linux right now so Kazoo is not an option anymore.

But I will tell you my previous findings. As I mentioned in a previous post I think that .Net makes the Nas perform worse. I realized that when I saw that it was installed and did an uninstall and found that to be better. The thing is that the uninstall probably went wrong because I could install Kazoo without .Net. I later relized that Kazzo needs .Net to works so probably pieces of .Net still was on the system and made Kazoo work. At that point I thought that Kazoo was better that Asset. Then when I did a scratch install of Windows 7 and then tried to install Kazoo it said that it missed .Net and started the installation of that before the installation of Kazoo could continue. Then when I compared with Asset I found Asset better that Kazoo.
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Kazoo Server?

Post by David Neel »

I had .Net installed. I uninstalled it yesterday when I read that LSNAS was better without it, but then when I installed Kazoo, it re-installed .Net.

My provisional verdict is that Kazoo Server is usefully better than Asset, but I now need to try Asset without .Net installed.

To be continued.....
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Post by christian »

Yesterday I made a new and rather strange finding. First of all let me explain my setup. The LS NAS now runs Debian Linux and Asset media server. It has no keyboard, mouse or display connected. I also do not have any Wi-Fi at my home so I have a separate laptop connected to the network by wire for controlling the playback. I have always used Kinsky as control point but since Kazoo came out I have both of them installed, using them quite randomly.

But now it seems that the control point also affects the sound. I was having a good glass of red wine yesterday and played music for an hour or two. Then when I tried to change album using Kazoo the Kazoo program just froze. I restarted the PC but Kazoo would not work, so I started Kinsky and changed album using that. Suddenly I felt that the magic was gone. I still had music in the playlist that had been put there by Kazoo and when I played this I felt that the magic was back. Not the same album but I still felt that something got lost with the music from Kinsky. Very strange indeed.

This morning I have investigated this a little bit more. Kinsky still worked fine but Kazoo did not. I even tried to reinstall it but it would not work. Then I restated Asset and Kazoo started working. So it is obvious that in some way the two Control points does not address the Media server in the same way. Now with both of them working again I could do some A/B comparisons. One thing that I noticed is that I do not get the same information on the display of the DS from the different Control points. Kinsky shows for instance ‘Elvis Presley’ as artist but Kazoo shows ‘Presley, Elvis’. My guess is that Kinksy sends the ‘Artist’ tag and that Kazzo sends the ‘Album Artist’ Tag. Anyway after I have done a few comparisons this morning I still feel that I get more music from Kazoo. It would be great if others could verify this! One thing that might affect is how the actual Flac file is tagged, so I guess it is possible to get other results than mine.

All this really bothers me as my previous tests have been done with either Kinksy or Kazoo randomly. I do remember that when I made my first test with Kazoo Server, and found that better than Asset, I was also using Kazoo as Control Point.
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Post by David Neel »

Well, I've repeated the comparisons between Asset and Kazoo Server, to be sure of what I thought I was hearing, and to see the difference when .Net is uninstalled.

1) I agree that Asset benefits from having .Net removed. I also turned off/deleted a few other bits of Windows (Visual Basic, XPS) and got a useful benefit. I also removed Kazoo Server, as I couldn't see a way to switch it off.

2) When I thought I was familiar with this optimised state with Asset, I re-installed .Net and Kazoo Server, and disabled Asset. Immediate impression was of more clarity/less hash, but also less tension in the music. After a while I realised that Kazoo was slightly spotlighting the most prominent voice/instrument, and losing the musical communication.

3) Back to Asset, with .Net and Kazoo once more deleted. Musical tension back in full, and although I slightly miss the reduced hash level of Kazoo, I'm sticking with Asset. Quick, slightly exaggerated summary: Kazoo musicians have taken Valium, Asset musicians have drunk a double espresso!

@ThomasOK - I normally trust your ears completely. Have you tried Kazoo as an update to Songbox? I'd be interested to know if you find it a retrograde step.

In view of what Christian says about control points, all this was done with Chorus DS.
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Songbox

Post by David Neel »

Today it occurred to me that just because Songbox is superseded by Kazoo and was longer visible on Linn's website when I looked yesterday, doesn't mean it's not there! A quick google found it at oss.linn.co.uk/trac/wiki/SongboxDownload - it's been on my LSNAS for ten minutes and sounds wonderful!

Much better than Kazoo, and I prefer it to Asset also.
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Songbox

Post by David Neel »

Ha, ha, ha!

Ever since I posted that I preferred Songbox, I haven't been able to stream any music, as Songbox and Chorus have a big falling out and no amount of restarting will fix the problem. :(

Kinsky also fails to find Songbox.

Back to vinyl - at least I have the new Jarrett/Haden LP delivered today. :)
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Post by David Neel »

Not sure what was wrong, but I have got Songbox working again. Did a Windows update, reinstalled everything I had changed, restarted all devices and it worked. I can confirm that Songbox is musically better than Asset.

But I am now getting "drop-outs" where the music stops at random and has to be restarted. Anybody have any clues as to what might be causing this?

Today the Kingston RAM arrived, so I have just installed in place of the A-Data. On the basis that it needs to burn-in, I will withhold comment at the moment. Will leave on for 24 hours and then listen again.
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Post by ThomasOK »

David, I did update Songbox to Kazoo but unfortunately didn't do a musical comparison. (I guess I was too trusting.) It is interesting that you find Kazoo worse than Asset yet Songbox better. I will have to try going back to Songbox - these updates that get worse are really frustrating. I probably won't have time to do anything about this for a few weeks as I am getting everything ready this week to make sure I am caught up here and ready to go to RMAF next week. Because of the cost of shipping and freight handling for the show I have borrowed a minivan and will be driving out to Denver. As this is a 20 hour drive I will have 9 days involved in displaying for this 3 day show.

I actually recently started using Asset again as I just loaded a bunch of music on the LS-NAS and I haven't been able to get Kazoo to find it! I tried having it re-index, throwing out the current index and having it make a new one, telling Windows that all the files were music files, moving them into the same folders as the other music and then creating a new index again all to no avail. Asset found all the files right away. So I have another reason to try Songbox again.
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Post by David Neel »

Thomas, if you have updated from Songbox to Kazoo and if they had both performed as they did for me - you would not have needed to A/B it, you would have noticed something had gone missing. So I have to conclude that we still don't have a full grip on what causes these musical and sonic changes.

And Kazoo, when it had catalogued, displayed every track twice in the library, but only once on the playlist.

Good luck at RMAF!
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Re: dynamic and spanned volume

Post by Linncredible »

Found some time last weekend to assemble my LS-NAS and it's now up and running! For the moment just with the OS-SSD though, so I have not imported any music yet. Next step is to format the Intel 320 600GB. Since my music collection is more than 600GB, just this single SSD won't do and I'm planning to buy (at least) one more 320 600 GB. Therefore I'm very interested if anybody has any experience to share regarding Klaus's question below. Anyone?
k_numigl wrote:Has anybody tried whether a conversion to a dynamic volume, and spanned volume under W7 makes any difference to a basic primary one?

Only one data SSD is too small by now and for convenience I would like to use more than one disk as one volume, if music is not compromised by this.

BR, Klaus
Last edited by Linncredible on 2014-10-06 19:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: dynamic and spanned volume

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Linncredible wrote:Found some time last weekend to assemble my LS-NAS and it's now up and running! For the moment just with the OS-SSD though, so I have not imported any music yet. Next step is to format the Intel 320 600GB. The question is how: since my music collection is more than 600GB, just this single SSD won't do and I'm planning to buy (at least) one more 320 600 GB. Therefore I'm very interested if anybody has any experience to share regarding Klaus's question below and what is the best way forward regarding formatting the Intel SSD in Win7?
k_numigl wrote:Has anybody tried whether a conversion to a dynamic volume, and spanned volume under W7 makes any difference to a basic primary one?

Only one data SSD is too small by now and for convenience I would like to use more than one disk as one volume, if music is not compromised by this.

BR, Klaus
Hi, No I haven´t tried this. Besides the OS disk (40 GB 320 SSD) I have two 320 300 GB disks. Asset can scan multiple paths so I don´t think it´s a problem to store the music on two or more disks.
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Re: dynamic and spanned volume

Post by Linncredible »

christian wrote:
Linncredible wrote:Found some time last weekend to assemble my LS-NAS and it's now up and running! For the moment just with the OS-SSD though, so I have not imported any music yet. Next step is to format the Intel 320 600GB. The question is how: since my music collection is more than 600GB, just this single SSD won't do and I'm planning to buy (at least) one more 320 600 GB. Therefore I'm very interested if anybody has any experience to share regarding Klaus's question below and what is the best way forward regarding formatting the Intel SSD in Win7?
k_numigl wrote:Has anybody tried whether a conversion to a dynamic volume, and spanned volume under W7 makes any difference to a basic primary one?

Only one data SSD is too small by now and for convenience I would like to use more than one disk as one volume, if music is not compromised by this.

BR, Klaus
Hi, No I haven´t tried this. Besides the OS disk (40 GB 320 SSD) I have two 320 300 GB disks. Asset can scan multiple paths so I don´t think it´s a problem to store the music on two or more disks.
Great, thanks Christian! No problem with the functionality of asset then!
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Post by David Neel »

David Neel wrote: Today the Kingston RAM arrived, so I have just installed in place of the A-Data. On the basis that it needs to burn-in, I will withhold comment at the moment. Will leave on for 24 hours and then listen again.
The Kingston RAM has now had two weeks of almost 24/7 burn-in. It was horrible to start with - harsh and unmusical - but seems to have burned in somewhat. I just removed it and put the A-Data back in. A convincing win for the Kingston. Also, as the Kingston has been burning in, the gap between Asset and Songbox has grown.
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Post by Linncredible »

LS-NAS now been playing for a little more than a week and it sounds very good indeed! The first burn-in week has been interesting, day 1 OK (and a bit, not very much, better than previous tweaked ReadyNAS DUO with ES.2-HDD).Day 2-3 really strange soundwise (like playing from inside a box). Day 4-5: now things begins to happen, really lovely, much better than tweaked ReadyNAS DUO, still harsh sound though. After that (day 4-9): a bit better for everyday, less harshness etc, very nice, still evolving and improving! To sum it up so far: a really worthwile investment in time and money and a surprisingly large improvement in the musical performance of the system!! A big thanks to all you guys building, experimenting and reporting here - and of course an extra big thanks and hat off to Linnofil who started it all!

I have now also bought a second SSD 320 600GB, will retire old ReadyNAS DUO in a couple of days when I'm able to transfer all my music to LS-NAS. (Hope the LS-NAS won't be to hot when installing 2 * Seagate Constellation ES.2 2TB.)

Have yet to experiment with optimal directionality of SATA-cables, maybe also with the positioning and the attachment of the fan.

One strange thing: the system information screen in Windows reports 8,00 GB installed physical memory but total physical memory is reported to be 3,6 GB, available physical memory = 2,46 GB, total virtual memory = 7,21 GB, available virtual memory = 6,06 GB. Anybody who has any idea of what is going on here?!? I'm afraid I haven't the necessary tech know how to understand what is going on. One of the two Kingston 4GB RAM:s damaged or is it some kind of setting that needs to be altered??
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Post by flojo »

Looks like you installed the 32 bits W7 version unable to handle over 4 Gb RAM. In order to acces all 8 Gb, you need to reinstall your LS using W7 64 bits.
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Post by Linncredible »

flojo wrote:Looks like you installed the 32 bits W7 version unable to handle over 4 Gb RAM. In order to acces all 8 Gb, you need to reinstall your LS using W7 64 bits.
No, it's the 64 bit version (Swedish version) I have installed, no doubt about it, so that can't possibly be the problem. Thanks though for the suggestion, ideas is what I need right now!
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Post by flojo »

Hmm, next try...

1. Type/open msconfig
2. Run as admin
3. Select Boot tab
4. Select Advanced Options. In the following window you can check/uncheck max memory. If it's checked, you will see max memory. In that case:
5. Uncheck
6. Close msconfig
7. Reboot your LS.

If not... I'll think of another option.
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Post by Linncredible »

Did exactly as you suggested flojo, but I'm afraid total physical memory is still, after reboot, reported to be only 3,6 GB. If you have any other suggestion it's very appreciated!

PS For a moment I was thinking if this had something to do with me removing .Net. However several of you other guys have done this and no problem have been reported so I guess this is not the solution. DS
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Post by Linncredible »

Hmm, have a suspicion it could be about BIOS settings.I'm using a second hand MB and have really not been juggling with the BIOS settings, it is of course not impossible that the MB has previously been used with a 32-bit version of Win7 and that some kind of BIOS setting still remain unchanged event though the MB has been taken out of previous computer and has now been installed in a LS NAS (if this is possible that is...). Will investigate...

Update 1: I have now browsed through all BIOS advanced settings and can't see anything that could possibly affect how much RAM the system can access/use. Well, well, one source of problem eliminated I guess...

Update 2: Did a complete reset of BIOS to default settings (except "SATA-mode" where IDE is default but you have to choose the AHCI option if don't want to make a total reinstall of windows --> see Christians post from 2014-09-20 17:20) and restarted the LS NAS. No difference this time either I'm afraid, still only 3,6 GB reported...
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Post by tokenbrit »

Have you tried memtest? This runs before the Win boot so would confirm that the system is able to access the full 8Gb, and test for errors. If that passes then it's something with the o/s...
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Post by Linncredible »

tokenbrit wrote:Have you tried memtest? This runs before the Win boot so would confirm that the system is able to access the full 8Gb, and test for errors. If that passes then it's something with the o/s...
Thanks for the suggestion tokenbrit! I have run the memory tests in the ASUS PC Diagnostic program and nothing strange shows up(other than that accessible memory is reported to be 3,6 GB that is to say...). The memtest you are suggesting tokenbrit seems to be something else. How do you access it?
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Post by tokenbrit »

Memtest needs to be run from a bootable thumb drive or cd/dvd instead of booting from system disk through to Windows...

Pretty sure it's memtest86+ that I used - look at memtest.org to find an ISO that you can use to make a bootable disk or thumbdrive.
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Post by Linncredible »

Thanks tokenbrit, I will have a look at this. Hopefully it can help me to come a bit further regarding this matter. Other suggestions from you other guys are of course also welcome!
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Post by flojo »

Did you already try testing RAM strips one by one: so first put in one strip, rebooting, see if the systems starts etc and then the other? This way you can see, if one of your strips is broken and determine if the hardware is causing problems.
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Post by Linncredible »

flojo wrote:Did you already try testing RAM strips one by one: so first put in one strip, rebooting, see if the systems starts etc and then the other? This way you can see, if one of your strips is broken and determine if the hardware is causing problems.
Good idea flojo, will investigate this. Thanks!
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