Wasn’t entirely sure if I should create a new topic for this or not, so apologies if I should have re-used the Allo USBridge board thread…
Anyway, I ordered this package recently, and it all arrived a couple of days ago. Based on the advice I also added the USB3 ethernet dongle, but it doesn’t work out of the box. I expected to be able to connect it all and have it work (as that is more or less the point of ordering the bundle isn’t it?).
So, I am doing this headless (no keyboard or monitor directly connected), which yes makes life a little more complicated, but not so much. In case anyone else has this issue, the steps I took are:
Connect ethernet to the onboard port. This works out of the box, and the device gets itself an IP address from the router (DHCP), and either using bonjour or checking what devices are connected to your router, I can log onto the system.
Connect USB Dongle to the USB 3 port, as per the instructions on the Allo site.
Checking the system logs (dmesg), I can see that when the device connects, it is somewhat recognised:
[36779.565897] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci-hcd
[36779.587727] usb 2-1: Parent hub missing LPM exit latency info. Power management will be impacted.
[36779.592163] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0b95, idProduct=1790
[36779.592174] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[36779.592182] usb 2-1: Product: AX88179
[36779.592188] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ASIX Elec. Corp.
[36779.592194] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 00000000000040
Unfortunately, it fails:
[36779.958888] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 (unregistered net_device): mtu 1500
[36779.959550] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 eth1: register 'ax88179_178a' at usb-xhci-hcd.0.auto-1, ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet, 00:90:9e:9d:66:45
[36780.443932] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 eth1: unregister 'ax88179_178a' usb-xhci-hcd.0.auto-1, ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet
[36780.485791] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 (unregistered net_device): Failed to write reg index 0x0002: -71
[36780.485865] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 (unregistered net_device): Failed to write reg index 0x0001: -71
[36780.485929] ax88179_178a 2-1:1.0 (unregistered net_device): Failed to write reg index 0x0002: -71
[36780.907619] usb 2-1: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci-hcd
[36780.925915] usb 2-1: device descriptor read/8, error -71
It does work if I connect using the USB 2 port, but then I may as well just use the onboard ethernet port!
My understanding is the USB3 socket is to connect a DAC for the USBridge to be used as designed. I could be wrong of course…not sure how you are using it in your setup otherwise.
I followed the document here: https://www.allo.com/sparky/usb-to-gigabit.html#downloads which says to plug it into the USB 3 slot. This means I have the DAC connected via the “USB Host” labelled slot which appears to be labelled “clean USB output” in the Doco.
Possibly because I am a sucker. I read somewhere on the Allo site (I think or possibly computeraudio) that it was recommended over using the built in port, particularly when up-sampling to DSD512. Given it isn’t working via the dongle I am using the ethernet on the device directly.
The unit I have has 4 USB ports, one on the side labelled “USB 3”. This is the one I am connecting the dongle too. On the face with the power plug, there are 3, the 2 USB2 ports, and one labelled “USB Host”, this latter one is where I have the DAC connected to.
@ascl I just had it pointed out that you are using the USB-Gigabit dongle…sorry missed that one. I think that should work in the USB3 based on what I have seen on the Allo site…so I am sure one of the Allo guys will chime is…they are pretty good with stuff here
This isn’t correct. The USB3.0 port belongs to the Sparky board.
The ‘bottom’ USB port (labelled ‘USB host’) is the one that belongs to the USBridge board - that’s the USB port with the ultra low noise output, to be connected to your USB DAC.
There have been a few reports of issues with the Allo supplied USB3-ethernet adapter on the USB3.0 port.
But as you found Nick @ascl the USB3.0-ethernet adapter does work fine on the USB 2.0 ports of Sparky, so I would just use that. I’ve used the UBS 2.0 port with PCM768kHz and DSD512 without any issues so don’t feel like the USB 2.0 is less capable, in terms of bandwidth.
The issue on the USB 3.0 port (with their supplied ethernet adapter) has been reported to Allo by a few people on Computer Audiophile Forum.
Just to wrap here, using the USB 2 port works, and I can upsample to DSD256 (DSD512 hits performance issues on my Roon Core, but that isn’t surprising, it is a QNAP NAS with an underpowered CPU. That should be fixed soon hopefully!)
In practice, I am yet to see any benefit, and possibly it has contributed to some stability issues I have been having… and it seems I am not the only one:
Long story short, I would skip the adapter for now. Maybe if/when the sparky gets a more recent kernel the issues will go away?
