Yep, the Surface Pro 3 is my plan for now. I sure hope I can get it to be reliable though. I set the screen to never turn off, and screensaver to blank after 60 minutes. Went to bed, and now Roon doesn’t find it again. I’ll have to mess around with it some more tonight. Ugh.
Seems like there is an opportunity out there for someone to produce a reasonably priced turnkey solution for a network endpoint that supports multichannel. The OPPO 203 would have been an awesome one. 
What did you do for the power sleep setting? It sounds as though the Surface itself is going to sleep or into hibernation if Roon can’t find it.
It is set to never sleep when plugged in. A quick touch of the keyboard brings the screen back on, and then bam! Roon sees it again. I’ll poke around some more this evening and report back. Thanks!
So, the lock screen keeps coming on, and apparently when it does Roon loses the connection. Any idea how to stop this?
Also just asking if you have a Surface Pro cover and are closing it. I ask if closing the cover overrides your never sleep setting. JCR
I do have a cover, but I am not closing it.
For what it’s worth, the SP3 is docked in the SP3 docking station.
Thanks!
Might be an unfixable issue. See this article:
JCR
That Google discussion has a post from Joe Roach that accurately describes the various states that the Surface Pro 3 can have, including Connected Standby. Thing is, this is not an “unfixable issue”, IMO - I think something else is going on.
The point being that the symptoms that Edward is describing seem to indicate that network connectivity is being lost, yet if the Surface Pro 3 were going into a Connected Standby state as it should, then network connectivity is preserved in that state; it’s the whole raison d’être of Connected Standby.
This is a bit odd. I’ve just taken my Lenovo ThinkPad 10, which is an Atom-based tablet that implements Connected Standby in Windows 10. Normally, I use it as a Roon Control device, but for the purposes of experiment, I’ve now also set it up as a Roon Endpoint.
So I’ve got the power/sleep settings as:
With these settings, then when the screen blanks, the audio continues uninterrupted. However, when the device goes into Connected Standby (after 30 minutes, or when the cover is closed), then the audio stops, followed shortly by the Roon Core reporting that the Endpoint has gone. I suspect that either RAAT is not compatible with the Connected Standby state, or the fact that the Audio is turned off is what is triggering the Core to report that the Endpoint has gone.
Whatever, the fact remains that on the ThinkPad 10, I can have a blank screen, and the audio continues. Next step is to try this out on my Surface 3 (note, not a Surface Pro 3), and see what happens there.
Embarrassing, but I solved my problem… turns out the Surface came unplugged. Of course, the power setting while on battery had the screen turning off. Plugged power cable back into the dock, and all seems to be good now. 
Excellent, enjoy multichannel audio via Roon.
Find Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” in surround. It’s spooky how cool it is. Cheers. JCR
I’m very new to the Roon ecosystem and have been doing lots of reading and researching but not only do I have a lot to learn, much is over my head…but I hope to over come. I’ve decided to go with a NUC ROCK core and was originally thinking of going direct, via HDMI, to my Marantz 8802A but I’ve also been looking at ways to separate the output from the core.
I’ve found a box that I think might be suitable and maybe it might serve Edward, and others, as well. It seems powerful enough, can utilize various OS’s and configurations and doesn’t break the bank. It is a new box from Popcorn Hour and I was wondering if the Linux OS was utilized and install Roon Bridge, could this work as a network attached, multi channel endpoint, outputting via HDMI?
https://www.cloudmedia.com/?product=popcorn-hour-transformer
I will very much look forward to feedback from the more knowledgeable persons, in this community.
Thanks!
I think that the Popcorn cannot handle multichannel or DSD files…
It seems to be more like a NAS that can operate on different OS (i.e.Android)
What is it that is making you think that? I would be surprised as all their previous hardware would support hi rez, multichannel, gapless play back. If not, it would be a big step backwards.
Well yes, as indicated, it can be set up as a NAS, or a media player, depending on how you configure it.
DSD or MCH is nowhere mentioned in the product page…
I think that you have to read between the lines a bit and look at the hardware and supported media player software…would be very surprising if that hardware doesn’t support multichannel over HDMI…it won’t go far as a “media computer”, if not. I guess that we’ll find out when it gets into users hands.
In any event, I have decided to go with an Odroid C2, running Dietpi, as my Roon Bridge endpoint which will output hi rez multichannel to my Marantz 8802A. Much less expensive. 
Let me know, how that goes. Tried that a few times, but never managed to get it to play multi-channel.
Hi Boris, while reading around, I did see your posts about not being successful, while others were posting their success…kind of strange!
I will certainly report how it goes but unfortunately, it will be a couple of months as I’m currently working overseas. All the bits will be waiting for me to put together my Roon system…looking forward to it!
Boy, at roughly $100 that Popcorn Hour Transformer is pretty interesting. Although I am now content with how my Surface Pro 3 is working as an output! Always good to understand what options are out there though…
Is the idea that you would just install one of the open source Linux images? How complicated would it be to configure for someone who has zero experience with Linux?
Crew, DietPi won’t support multichannel beyond 48 KHz over HDMI, so Edward, stick with your Surface Pro 3. Brent, while your 8802A will do great with multichannel over HDMI (it will downconvert DSF multichannel over HDMI to 24/176.4 internally and the Audyssey MultiEQ sound correction should work well), I expect you will have the same problem as Edward, in that, whether Odroid or RPi3, DietPi won’t support hidef multichannel over HDMI.
In another thread, Dan Knight, the creator of DietPi, indicated that it is a kernel issue and was on his list of things to work on with DietPi. I am unaware of any update yet to fix this issue. Anyone else able to weigh in? @Dan_Knight, you are expert on this one, if you’d comment, please. JCR