Hi: My Roon subscription starts tomorrow and I’m still having problems with high CPU Usage. I’m running Windows 10 Enterprise, Build 14393. I have a 2 year old Dell Lattitude 5480, Intel® Core™ i7-7600U CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2904 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s). Memory is not a problem.
I have Fios 150/150 so plenty of bandwidth. The roon system is connected to roughly 10 google chromecast units, one logitec transporter and sometimes a logitec squeezebox. The Transport receives it’s digital signal via ethernet, the rest over a Google Home Wifi/System.
It’s serious enough that it will cause Outlook and some other programs to stop responding. I’ve read every thread I can on this issue. Any ideas on what I can do? Any chance I can get my trial extended until I know this CPU usage is not permanant?
I think you can rescind your subscription if you act within Roon’s time frame. As for extending your subscription, I’ll bet they’ll answer you soon. If not, ask again.
Your long term solution, IMO, is to invest in a dedicated server for your music: a NUC ROCK if you can follow assembly instructions or a NUCLEUS or NUCLEUS+.
Roon is a CPU intensive beast, and it uses CPU much of the time, updating and analyzing your music files. It is inevitable that either Roon or an app will stop at some time.
My suggestion is to ride things out, see how well or poorly your apps coexist with Roon, and behave accordingly. Worst case is you become disappointed with Roon after a year and don’t renew. In my case I concluded very quickly that I wanted/needed a separate NUC appliance for Roon and I have not regretted that decision.
Thanks JohnV! I may be able to score an ugraded work Laptop. Since you seem to know a lot about processing power can I ask you a question?
As i mentioned, my current laptop processor is 7600U CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2904 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s). There are a couple of options I may be able to get my mgmt. to approve. Do you think either of these have enough horsepower for Roon?
Can you check to see if you have any Activity Spinner in the top right-hand corner of Roon?
If you do, this indicates that analysis of your audio files is still ongoing, and this is generally a CPU intensive process. If there is no activity spinner, I would try rebooting the Core to see if it helps and also checking for any “tutorial bubbles” as dismissing these sometimes help.
Hi Noris: I don’t see any Activity Spinner and don’t think I have any tutorial bubbles. What do you mean by rebooting the core? I disconnected from the roon cord which is “This PC”, shut off roon, started it back up then reconnected to “this PC”. Is that it? CPU usage for Roon ranges from 3% to 60%. It seems to be less when I’m not in “Album” mode. I have 33,000 tracks on a USB 3.0 hard drive. The hard drive is backup to my PC’s solid state hard Drive.
Do keep in mind that Roon is designed to be relatively CPU intensive, and while 60% is on the higher spectrum of usage, this is dependent on what is going on in the background for Roon, for example if it is playing DSD content, performing DSP or updating metadata that is why you may notice this spike.
I would try making some changes to the way that Roon operates, can you go into your Roon Settings -> Library and set Background Audio Analysis Speed & On-Demand Audio Analysis Speed to “Throttled” and let me know if that helps?
Hi Noris: The On-Demand Speed was already set at Throttled? Can you explain how I reboot the core. Do I just disconnect “This PC” under the general tab then reconnect selecting “Use this PC”?
Thanks! I have rebooted multiple times since installing Roon so I’m not seeing any change there. One question, might it help to get an external solid state drive for my stored music? Currently I have 33,000 tracks in my library.
Music media type SSD/HDD is unlikely to make any difference, other than perhaps your initial library import and audio analysis - but that is more likely CPU dependant.
A disk drive with errors could well be an issue that will cause things to be unpredictable however.
Hi: One thing I don’t understand is the purpose of the music folder in the roon storage settings. I did not set this up myself and the current path does not look to be legit (see below). Thots?
Also, I have about 10 different folders from my external music hard drive (5TB Fantom USB 3.0) by genre added to the storage settings. The CPU usage does not appear to be impacted by the number of folders I have enabled or disabled, that is I can cut down the 30K of tracks enabled if all folders are enabled to as few as 500 tracks and CPU usage remains high.
Windows has a default music directory under a users profile (and I’m guessing Mac does also). Roon just auto adds this because most users keep there music there and it saves them setting things up. Since I don’t keep music there usually, I just disable it.
BTW – I’ve been playing a lot of Tidal Masters (MQA) this morning and notice that when playing them mutiple programs will freeze on my computer. If I hit pause they usually unfreeze. Does this help explain anything?
Does the Dell your running Roon on have a SSD for the operating system? Roon needs this to build its database on , if it’s a spinning disk it won’t be up to the task. So I take it the pc with the core on is also your playback device and controller for Roon? Ensure you open firewall to allow Roon through to.
In addition to the comments by CrystalGipsy, it sounds like you are using the Dell for more than just running Roon? Are you using it for other computer related tasks at the same time? If so, what are those tasks?
Yes. I still work full time during the day…sigh…and I’m almost always running Outlook and often Excel and PowerPoint. Outlook is the one that gets hung up most often. If I hit pause on a song (more often need to do that if it is MQA) then Outlook will almost always work again.
From all of the response I’m getting it would appear the off and on high CPU usage is the way this will be as long as I’m working and I can live with it since I LOVE ROON! If there are any other ideas please keep them coming.
I keep saying last question but … Regarding MQA. I am playing through a Logitec Transporter. Should I have the MQA capabilities on the Transporter set to Renderer Only since Roon is doing all of the MQA unfolding? Also, are the MQA files from Tidal completely unfolded or only the first unfold. This might be a stupid question but I thought I read there were two phases to the unfolding and both of them were improvements but the two together provide the best results.
