I’m having a problem at the moment and I can’t help myself.
I have an Asrock H87 Pro 4 mainboard with an I3 as Pc with the usual bells and whistles.
And thought I would try to convert it to a ROON Rock.
I made roonbox-linuxx64-nuc4-usb-factoryreset.img with Balena etcher and then plugged the stick into USB port.
I was able to control it via Uefi and it installed everything according to the message I should pull out the stick and press Enter.
I did and it won’t boot.
Although the SSD is recognised in Bios and is defined as primary, nothing happens.
Did I load the wrong file to make it as Roon Rock, or is it generally not possible?
The mainboard is actually not bad except the Asrock Bios is just two much.
No, not at all.
I rather have the feeling that the pc does not know how to boot.
Although I have set the SSD hard drive in Bios primary Boot.
The pc has nothing else in it but the SSD and CD Rom drive, graphics card, power supply, Asrock mainboard.
I don’t know if it makes sense to reflash the bios maybe it has a bug in it ?
ROCK is specified for use with Intel NUCs, one reason is that the OS only includes drivers for that specific hardware. Perhaps that is the issue. Or you don’t have the UEFI set right, but, if that was the case you couldn’t have gone through the install routine.
Yes, I was thinking something like that.
Although it’s actually illogical if I install the whole installation file but can’t start it later just because it’s a PC.
But well, I guess I won’t get any further.
I read something that you can still use the Pc as Roon Rock, but it supposedly needs Ubuntu Server for that.
Help/Roon I found something I can’t find anymore.
But it sounded a bit complicated to implement if you are not so familiar with Linux, unfortunately.
Thanks for your help,.
Gentoo Player was easier to install and easier to handle if you take an hour.
And it was recognised immediately without any problems and the same on the PC, booting also worked straight away.
Maybe I should stick with that one for now.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Rock is just an operating system and roonserver. Load Linux and the Linux roonserver and it is basically the same. Or use Windows and the windows roonserver. the base OS doesn’t make any difference in SQ.
Personally I use Windiws ss my roonserver OS and have for almost 10, as well as a Rock NUC for 7, I prefer Windows.
Did you play with using UEFI boot on/off. Plug undo into tv or monitor and look at its output. If more than one ssd in device you sure you selected the correct one?
As mentioned ROCK is designed for Nucs and only comes loaded with drivers that the range support. It there is different architecture in the device then it won’t have drivers and won’t necessarily work.
If you want headless and a bit of low maintenance then you can use another Linux distro such as Dietpi. A number of us use this and moved from Rock and really happy with its performance.
Hello,
Thank you for your help.
I did not flash the bios as it is specified and I could not find anything on the Intel site.
I also didn’t do it because I don’t know the I3 generation of the PC and I can’t see if it’s a 10,11,12,13 generation chip.
I have downloaded the software from the Help/Roon page.
UEFi is switched off I think, I have to look again.
I also only have an SSD hard drive in the PC, so nothing that would get in the way.
Although the installation was completed successfully, and the hard drive can be selected via the boot menu without a USB stick, it does not start.
Either it really doesn’t work, or I may have activated something in the bios that is preventing it.
But I think it is as you say, that it only works for NUC’s and not for PC’s.
I’ll have a look at Dietpi, does it also work via the PC?
Gentooplayer seems to be much easier here once the image is created, you plug in the USB stick and it loads,
If everything fits, you get an IP address where you enter on the smartphone, tablet, PC via the web browser and let Gentooplayer register.if it is unlocked, set Enable Roon Bridge/Serve under Software and start Roon and it will connect to you, done.
When you are finished you can also shut down the PC,Pi manually and it will shut down.
Relatively uncomplicated, Roon seems a bit more complicated.
here is the link where I said that this would probably be the better option for ROON Server or Bridge for a discarded PC:
However, it is a bit complex for me to explain which steps are necessary to get it running without interference.
Would be easier for me to know which steps and programmes are necessary in the link for the Asrock mainboard which is installed with an I3.
I still think it is easier to use DietPi for PC. It will load Debian and then give the user a dashboard to install other options, including RoonServer.
Unfortunately I don’t have a Raspberry Pi,I would have to buy one probably to mount Dietpi,or is there something for Pc?
Actually I think the Raspberry pi is great, but they need a clean power supply for audio playback fidelity.
LhY Audio has released the Lhy Audio RPI fully optimised with clock and power and PI4.
The ideal solution for me would be a PI5 so that I can continue to use my Matrix Audio Element H card.
As the PI5 would have a Pcie connection.
Or just equip the PC with the card with an appropriate operating system.
I could hear a difference between the Gentooplayer, which serves as the core and is operated with an iPad, and Windows 10 in terms of sound.
The Gentooplayer sounded a little brighter, was again a little more detailed, a little less analogue but okay, actually really good although it ran over the Pc. I had zero problems with noise, fan noise ect which the Pc is often said to have.
Windows sounds a bit darker, more analogue and a bit warmer with pure Roon software.
I don’t know exactly why, although hardware-wise it’s the same dac and amplifier.
So I think there must be something to the dedicated software.
I think I should go back inside myself and think carefully about what I want.
With the options I have and all that stuff.
Thanks again for all the help.
I just saw it and watched a video about how he installed it on promox.
2-3 questions before I start and do the work.
1: I assume I download dietpi and run it over balena real, right?
And later boot on pc via uefi.
2: Where do I find the stuff to run it as a roon server later?
3: Can I run other programmes when Roon is running via Dietpi like Phiole ect?
I have just tried the Dietpi, selected the PC version on the main pc and downloaded the image via Balena etcher.
Plugged into the second PC and booted, everything installed.
PC shuts down after installation, pulls out the USB stick and gets the same error message as with ROON Rock:
I’m starting to get the feeling that the hard drive might be defective.
Even though it is still recognised in Bios, nothing seems to be written to the hard drive.
That’s a bit strange, but unfortunately I’ve also had various bluescreens with Windows due to hard disc problems, but strangely enough I’ve always been able to fix it.
The ROOn Rock file also asked me if I wanted to delete everything on the hard drive that had Windows on it, but now the question is whether there might be a partition problem.
As of now I have no operating system on the hard drive.
The PC also starts via UEFI and takes everything I give it as a mount image.
Sooo, I have now managed to get Roon running as a server with the discarded PC.
It was not that easy.
After a lot of time in Dietpi had to be inverted to familiarise myself with it, it worked.
And then I didn’t even redo everything and also installed pihole.
I installed Roon Bridge on the main PC for Windows and searched desperately for the operating programme.
Until I realised that I should try it with the IIpad and lo and behold, I configured everything there again and it works without having to move the hardware on the main PC.
It recognises the Singxer Su 2 on the Ipad which I select and load the playlist and Zack is running.
I think it definitely sounds better than on the Windows PC, I have to say.
Much better, more definition, more decay, more reverb, much more extension in all areas and crystal clear.
And still sounds good analogue with the Gustard R26.
And also better than with the integrated steaming option of the Gustard.
On windows it was sometimes too warm in sound and a bit incontinent not so nicely extended sometimes washed out.
Dietpi only runs via external hard drive, not with the Sata connected hard drive, which I don’t really care about now.
Thanks for all the help and support.
