Death of the PC

[CoenP]

It finally happened: the PC supply somehow ruined the renewed OS drive and at the same time my Music drive. These drives must be considered deceased and as such the NOS1a useless.
And I mean really useless since the NOS MAC driver also does not work anymore (since el Capitain) and there is no other PC to take over.

This is the fourth disk incident of different computer devices in the last year. One NAS and two PCs.
I have to say I've increasingly lost my appetite for computers and Computer Audio specifically in the same era. What a drag to format, install, configure, activate, etc each time something goes astray. Forget one parameter and you'll be punished with bad sound and why-the-h311-wont-it-sound-good-headaches. Only one configuration seems to work here and arriving at that point takes time and again weeks of dedication. On top of that came the disappointing tweak adventures like the Intona that did not deliver the goods (or any good for that matter). It has become too time consuming and unsatisfying. I have been trying to tame this pc since its creation in 2012. Without success obviously.

Now I'm back to my old friends. Both my 20 year old CD player and 50 year old turntable never ever stopped fulfilling their duties one day. Only a few tweaks and a little care are needed to keep them running. Only a couple of CDs have become unplayable due to degradation in the course of almost three decades, vinyl seems to last forever when treated properly. Fortunately I did not discard of this hardware nor software and am still able to play and enjoy music. Actually they have been playing for over 70% of the time lately.

I'm not sure what I will do next. I'm really tired of tweaking 100's of parameters to perfection again and I also feel reluctant to start pouring 1000s of euros into vastly inferior and consequently obsolete-as-you-buy-it technology. Otoh is is a waste to not tap into the potential of the DAC that is or at least should be capable of audio quality far beyond the other sources. But will I be willing to pay the price?: Like a preconfigured PC is only half a solution since the music is expected to be on another PC with full exposure to all the PC and Windows cr*p that have put me off in the first place.

I've no problems with cleaning a disk or taking a CD out of its cover. Their sound is not the best but acceptable. I don't care for the -expensive- streaming propositions with their limited and to me unappealing catalogs. Maybe I'm not the guy for computer audio after all.

regards, Coen

[AlainGr]

Hi Coen,

I feel sad for what is happening... I suppose that all depends where one comes from. Or the amount of passion we inject in it. 

In 2009 I decided to rip my CDs. First it was the ease of use and the ability to play music with my 2.1 computer speakers that drove me. The only "label of quality" for me was to not convert anything into MP3. At the time I was absolutely not aware that many people were already doing this to play with their main sound system. Tweaks, external dac,... I wasn't familiar with those. For me it was wonderful not to manipulate the CDs anymore. 

My decision about my turntable and vinyls would come a few years later. My turntable was in a cardboard box, so were my vinyls. I was not warm with the idea to go back at them, maybe because what was happening in my life at that time was simply not motivating enough ? I don't recall.

One day I read about dacs and asked some questions around. A guy that installs Sonos like systems in residences and commercial buildings told me he had a Bryston dac. The cost was "high" for my standards but I decided to go for it.

Then all started from that.

I could go on with this, but all in all what I am trying to convey is that what I hear today is so much better than what I was hearing before, with my CD player and my turntable (at least it was different). But of course, it always comes to what you were used to listen to before going the computer audiophile route.

I actually use 2 PCs: one that was bought 8 years ago and one from 2012. The older one is used as my "all purpose" PC and music server (Core 2 duo 6850 3ghz with 8GB of ram, Windows 7 x64 pro). It is still very reliable and I use it each and every day for all tasks that I can think of.

The other is the "audio PC" and it should last between 8-10 more years. It does nothing except playing music, that is when I feel the pleasure to. It is idling most of the time with XXHighEnd, Minimized OS mode, os-ram drive, etc... The weird thing is that I had to send my Seasonic Platinum 1kw PSU under warranty (it refused to start one morning - 7 years warranty on it).

I have chosen not to compare vinyl to digital. I do the nightmare it was, with all the vinyl flaws (bad copy from worn out matrix, uncentered hole, warped record, "clicks" and "pops"). All the times I went back at the store to change a defective LP (was happening with 2 out of 3 LPs). You don't imagine the number of times I had to do this...

Does digital has a digital sound. For me it is a "yes", but with the NOS1 (soon to be a NOS1a in a few days), XXHighEnd and all that I have learned from Peter and others around, I will never go back to anything that was here before. This is just me but the older I get, the more lazy I am and even if someone was to prove me that vinyl or R2R tape is way better, I will not go back. "I gave".

But I sure learned that I have to adjust my expectations. My hearing will never be what it was many years ago, my sensitivity is not that good either, so I just take what I can and appreciate...

A friend told me once that it was valuable to try to change our angle of vision when something negative was happening... I won't say it is easy to do, but the more I advance in life, I feel less "edgy" about certain things I can't really change...

Not that this is of some help, but I felt the desire to share this with you and our community

Regards,

Alain

[manisandher]

Hey Coen, I think we've all been there at some point in time. I can't remember the number of times I've wanted to throw the whole 'PC thing' out of the window. I mean, only recently, I was trying to get the RAM-OS to work in my office audio PC, and constantly getting the 'not enough RAM' error. I completely replaced the installed 16GB RAM with new RAM... but still the problem persisted. I tried so many things and spent so long on this, because I could hear the massive improvement the RAM-OS had made in my main system. The cause of the issue? Only having an integrated GPU in the mobo and not an external video card!!! I only stumbled upon this by accident.

Yep, PCs can be the biggest PITA. BUT... there has never been an issue that [often with the help of all the guys here] I haven't managed to solve.

My advice? Take a bit of time off. Enjoy your CDs and LPs for a while. Once you're ready, start from a fresh slate with your PC. If funds permit, maybe just order a new one from Peter? I mean, it seems he's gone through a lot of the stress already...

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Uh-oh Coen ...
I think you possibly have been struggeling for too long on your own ?

Btw, before you have forgotten yourself, I think for you it started to go wrong with the "a" ... right ?
What about trying a non-a ?

The fact that for you the Intona failed as well is quite in the same direction (something with isolation your system does not like).

You seem to have all opposite to about all of the others. This is why I told you to maybe come by and see whether it is just you and your ears, or whether something else is going on (with a hint to the latter).

Anyway hard to envision you giving up. So it must be really bad ...

Best regards,
Peter

[CoenP]

Hi All,

Tanks for the warm support!
I feel I need to push the reset button to gain a fresh perspective on this issue. CD and Vinyl it will be for now (because there is nothing else).

Many things have been consuming my time lately and hampering and disobedient PCs were something that did not add to it well to it, they do require a lot of time and persistence to fix.

Peter you're probably right about the 1a thing in my system. No isolation trick ever worked out after that, neither did any of the related softweaks an OSsses. The route I've been following ended yesterday; it has been a struggle. I'll pm you for the "fresh ears" proposal!

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

I'll pm you for the "fresh ears" proposal!

Coen, please do. You know I like it very much.

Something else meanwhile :

I don't know where it was any more, but somewhere (maybe 2 months ago) I wrote about the 300W HDPlex PSU's getting too hot. Mind you, this is from what I READ (past tense) somewhere.
Meanwhile I had a 100W myself (btw still have) and although this gets warm and the load (= PC) is under my strict supervision, I can see that it wastes energy where this "obviously" is without reason. I mean, if I do it myself, nothing gets warm really. Now :

What only from very recently coincides is the story of Joachim, but this is not know to you. Actually to me myself it is a bit of "interpretation at the distance" of what happened over in Finland, but of what he told me (which is not necessarily the 100% truth, haha) he was able to have a sort of melt down of his PC, fed by the same 100W HDPlex (but with different ATX module). What I get of it, is that the unit got warmer and warmer, until something went "over" and the PC suffered (it did not break).

I think all depends largely on how the (ATX) protection works out and how the lot is challenged to begin with. Thus, let things heat up too much and performance (efficiency) will be more poor, which heats up more, which ...
Btw, Joachim most certainly did not confirm this, but he sure experienced a break down (things worked less and less until ...).
Now if the protection does not work as should (officially) anything can happen and it is hard to predict what. But say that the PC controls itself largely (OS + CPU does) and when the power supply starts to fail, possibly no further protections can kick in, like sudden shutdown before the damage gets too large. So you know, it really requires the IR Temperature meter to be used each 30 seconds, for a week in a row.
And more.
And aimed at anything that could potentially fail and when it fails you are probably too late to prevent further damage. But you can see it coming.

Mani too not so long ago talked about his Teradak being crazily hot - even without knowing for how long that had went on. Sure, things mostly are allowed to be so hot that you for sure would not like to touch them (say 100C+) but because of that heat, other things will sooner or later fail. For example a capacitor normally lasting 5 years may now die in 2 months. And capacitors tend to bridge plus and ground and if they fail they may short cut. And if you have a short cut, you will end up with nothing left (and hope that things don't get on fire).

You are right. A turntable has only a motor and should be less dangerous.
And when I was a small kid, I listened to my fathers turntable of which I knew how to switch it on and listened to the sound from the needle only. So maybe that is even more safe ? (stereo image would be less though).

Ok, nothing to really laugh about. But possibly your HDPlex failed on you because maybe it is not powerful enough, no matter what you think from math. It did not work for Joachim either (with his 80W TDP processor) and what I recall of it myself was that with that the lot consumes 20 (or was it 30 ?) Watts more (I wrote about this). That tells something.

Ok, back to work ...
Peter

[manisandher]

Mani too not so long ago talked about his Teradak being crazily hot - even without knowing for how long that had went on.

I had my Teradak working perfectly for 6 months or so with the i7 3960X processor at full speed. Yes, the Teradak used to get 'hot', but it has quite substantial heat sinks on either side, so not sure how hot the components inside were getting.

In any event, reducing the CPU speed to 1.2GHz (lowest I can go) and using RAM-OS has transformed this situtation - the Teradak now gets lukewarm at best. If it wasn't for the power LED, I'd wonder if it was actually switched on.

So there do seem to be ways in which to manage the stress on the PSU.

Mani.

[christoffe]

What only from very recently coincides is the story of Joachim, but this is not know to you. Actually to me myself it is a bit of "interpretation at the distance" of what happened over in Finland, but of what he told me (which is not necessarily the 100% truth, haha) he was able to have a sort of melt down of his PC, fed by the same 100W HDPlex (but with different ATX module). What I get of it, is that the unit got warmer and warmer, until something went "over" and the PC suffered (it did not break).

Hi Peter,

The stuttering of the music happens with the OS was not in MinOS. (In MinOS no stuttering of the music) So, when changing the status of the OS's the system was not stable. (LPS power too low)

Sent you this pm in May.

Joachim

-Quote-
He, he Peter,

Ok, a confusion created from my side.

Will clarify my situation with the PicoPSU 160Watts + HDPlex 100Watt LPS.

A)   The 12V LPS power is connected  to socket 1 + 8 (see PDF attached)
B)   No 4Pin power connection for the PCIe cards

C)   In the Bios the LAN controller is disabled, same with USB3
D)   Power consumption during normal operation ~ 88 – 90Watts.
E)   Power consumption after enabling the LAN controller (necessary for RDC)  increases of ~2 Watts
F)   Power consumption increases up to 98 Watts after disabling XXH MinOS, so OS is back with all processes and music begins to stutter (with 8x ArcPrediction).
The HDPlex 100Watt LPS limit is reached.
G)   The temperature of the HdPlex 100Watt LPS was constant with appr. 48 – 50°C.
H)   Side note: Using the HDPlex with the laptop the housing was “handwarm” only.
I)   The temp of the CPU cooler (below the running fan) was ~ 38°C
J)   The temp of the cooler rips of the graphic card has been ~40°C

K)   Changing back to the BeQiet PSU the power consumption drops to ~51 Watts. I think, an 8Pin connection to the power socket 1 on the mobo is necessary using a LPS.
L)   The ASUS graphic card “eats” ~ 23 Watts and after dismounting we are at your ~ 30 Watts for the whole PC operating with an RDC configuration.

I’m “snoopy” about your LPS design + price.

What worries me, was the change of the soundstage, just like a Mono replay with my “LPS configuration” .
-Unquote-

Joachim

[CoenP]

In retrospect, the failure may very well have to do with the HDPlex units. After the incident the atx unit dit not fire up and I had to reset it by disconnecting it from the psu. Then I discovered that the disks were defunct.
I haven't been paying attention to heat lately since it ran cool before the previous failure. At least that was my assumption. Especially the lpsu ran quite hot in normal operation. I also forgot about the influence of xx settings on the powerconsumption. I've been messing around with those.

If this is all related, the HDPlex lpsu would match well with a simple laptop, but nothing more.

Regards, Coen

[fmanheck]

Hi Coen
Just wanted to say I feel your pain. I really struggle with just the computer basics and I can't imagine how much more someone like you has to know to get things working on your own. For me when I can't figure it out. I go away for while until the SQ draws me back in. I wish you the best on this. Thanks

Fred

[CoenP]

Thanks Fred,

The thing is that PCs and Operating Systems never have been developed with our requirements in mind, actually how to do such a thing is kind of proprietary knowledge of the Peter's of this world.

If you take all the variables into account and deviate from the "proven recipe" the outcome is pretty unpredictable. It was an interesting learning journey to get it working to satisfaction, but also a frustrating one. Consciously or unconsciously changing one variable can push the SQ over edge and you're back at square one. Fortunately we still have the music to get back to our senses!

regards, Coen