Well, after seven years of generally faithful service, my Nucleus Plus seems to have bitten the dust. We had a bad electrical storm the Saturday night, and lost internet service until this afternoon. When I booted everything back up, the Nucleus refused to respond. No lights on the back panel. So, I think it’s fried.
It was connected to a surge protector, and all the other equipment on the surge protector are working fine.The power brick is providing 19V+, and all the connections are good, but the old Nucleus…well, RIP I think.
So, my options are….?
I’m thinking a PC mini or Mac mini might be the way to go? I don’t really feel like springing for a new Nucleus at this point. I have a lifetime subscriptIon.
I’m going to keep poking around and see if I can bring it back to life, but I’m not hopeful.
It could be a power supply issues or the NUC itself (or both).
If you have an alternative PSU try swapping it over.
If not, do you have a multimeter to check the output of your existing PSU?
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Ok that pretty well rules out a problem with the PSU, and points a finger at the Nucleus.
As @mjw mentioned, it could be a user replaceable component (RAM, SSD etc.) that has failed.
If you’re up for taking it apart and testing by removing / swapping components that’s probably the next step.
Unfortunately I’ve never owned one, so not best places to advise on these steps in detail … but if you wish to give it a go someone one here will help you.
Alternatively, cut your losses and look to replace.
My 6 year old Nucleus became very sluggish and problematic. Three years ago i also had to replace the Boot ROM.
What I did this time was bought a used M2 Mac Mini from MacSales and couldn’t be happier with the setup. Response to loading tracks is much quicker, another plus is that it takes up very little space in my audio rack I access it if needed via screen sharing from my desktop Mac.
I took the internal SSD from the Nucleus and bought an external case from Amazon for only $9 and attached it to the Mac Mini via USB for my local storage.
I only have five zones, 2500 albums, 35000 tracks and don’t use any other software (no room tuning, etc.). Use Qobuz for most streaming with maybe 200 CD rips. Very basic user. I don’t see ever going past 5000 albums and 75000 tracks.
I use iPhone and iPad but a Windows laptop. So I guess either a NUC or a Mac mini would work. If a Mac mini could I screen share with my iPad? I don’t have a separate monitor.
IDK….I’m not a hardware wizard, so I’m thinking Nucleus One might be the easiest way to go, although it’s a step down from a Nucleus Plus.
I tend to agree as all you’ll need to do to get up and running is switch on and restore a recent backup.
This is good for up to 100,000 tracks, and the way you use Roon, ideal. The One is probably closer to the original Nucleus in terms of performance, whereas your Plus was more than you needed in practice.
Thanks. I assume I need to contact Roon somehow about transferring my lifetime subscription to the new Nucleus and I just move my SSD from the old box to the new box (assuming the SSD is functioning properly, of course).
No need to contact Roon for the license. You just install the Nucleus One and when you access the first time from Roon Remote, you will see both cores available to login to. Just select the Nucleus One and login with your Roon credentials.
Also if you happen to have a Mac computer, you can also use it as the core to get you up and running while waiting for the Nucleus One
