Is there any way to verify that the nucleus sees all of the added memory after an upgrade? It’s not reported in the admin UX or anywhere else that I’ve found.
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Interesting point, I’m not a Nucleus owner but I assume there’s no back doors to check, e.g. SSH or BIOS. If you’ve failed to seat memory properly it usually causes a POST failure. I have seen issues where one badly seated stick has failed to register if other, properly fitted, sticks are present so this would be a handy “feature”.
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BIOS should tell you what’s installed.
Thanks Danny!
Is there any manual how to replace/swap RAM. Which brand, model did you install. I would really appriciate your answers. Thanx in advance
Gregor
I swapped
“Transcend 4GB DDR4 2666 SO-DIMM 1Rx16 1.2V (JM2666HSD-4G)”
for
“Crucial 8GB DDR4 2666 SO-DIMM 1.2V CL19 (CT8G4SFRA266)”
It worked out very well, without a problem. 8 GB are enough for my needs.
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can put both in for 12 GB and see how too
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Yes, that’s right, I should try that in addition. 
I run a 330K+ track library on my Rev A Nucleus 7th Gen i3 with 12GB and seems to be doing fine.
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Added the 4 GB as you suggested. Running fine.
Now a total of 12 GB.
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OK, just upgraded my nucleus plus ram to 2 sticks of 8mb. 16 total. I have an almost nonexistent library and the system seemed plenty snappy. So, according to common wisdom the “upgrade” wasn’t needed. But why not?
Always a curious soul, I did a before, and after comparison converting 44.1k to DSD256–a fairly processor intensive task.
Before the upgrade, I was showing a processing speed of 2.3x. Immediately after, the processing speed more than doubled to 4.9x (The higher, the better). Wow! I was elated! I also noticed snappier response to changing tracks and such.
Then, within a few minutes, the system bogged down for a second (“et phone home” ala the much “loved” 2.0?), then I was right back to where I started—Processing speed was back to where it was (2.3x) as was the response time.
Others here have also noted snappier response… At first.
Hmmmmmm.
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On a RoonOS machine, like Nucleus or a NUC running ROCK, more RAM will never speed up anything.
This is not true in Windows, MacOS and most Linux distributions, where RAM may speed things up. They have a file on disk where they offload RAM in certain situations, but RoonOS doesn’t have that at all.
If you run out of RAM on RoonOS, Roon will crash, so adding RAM can prevent that crash, but it never ever can improve performance.
Higher is not better, but too low is bad. I’ve written about this here:
The summary is that the number is good for knowing when things are bad but not for comparing how much better or worse the 2 situations are against each other. The reason is that more advanced CPUs self-throttle so they can run slower when the workload is less intense, and you can’t really know when that’s going to happen.
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The post you referenced compares different computers and different processors and different OS’s. Understandable there would be different “processing speed”.
With the same computer, same CPU, same software and same music playing I understand there will be minor variations,…but doubling?? Over the years of upsampling I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to this. Then there was the marked increase in snappiness.
OK. So this has nothing to do with the ram. Then why can’t it always be like this? For a few moments of bliss, It was better.
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It’s a tricky topic, I guess I wasn’t clear enough.
Let’s say you are playing audio, and the CPU throttles itself down because it doesn’t need to run at full power to handle the workload. To make the explanation less complicated, let’s say it throttles itself down to 800mhz (in reality, there are even more factors than clock speed of the CPU).
Let’s say your audio processing takes up about 25% of the CPU’s capability at 800mhz. Roon will show you 4x (4 x 25% == 100% of the CPU’s current capability).
Now let’s say a metadata update comes in, and it needs more CPU speed to process the database without creating skips in the audio stream. The CPU will raise its speed to 2ghz. The audio is still doing the same thing, but now the CPU is 2.5x faster. Your audio stream is taking up 10% of the CPU’s capability at 2ghz, so your signal path shows 10x processing speed.
You just got 2.5x faster in signal path on the exact same CPU playing the exact same song, even though more work was being done by the CPU!
This is why the number only matters when you are near the bottom (around 1x), because that definitively says “the CPU is struggling to keep up”. Everything north of that is nonsense. At high numbers, it’s so silly that we just turn off the processing speed indicator.
Hope that makes more sense.
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Thank you for the clarification. Very much makes sense. Sorry to drag this thread out again. Still struggling with the fact that the system was so much more responsive for that same period of time. if something was downloading or running in the background causing the processing speed numbers to go up, it seems the system response would be slower—not faster. Maybe it’s all just my imagination or an odd confluence of circumstance. I have also noticed more momentary hangups since 2.0 came out. Maybe spending more time communicating with your server? Maybe just coincidence. Who knows. Nonetheless, perfectly happy with things the way they are. I won’t beat this dead horse anymore! Thanks again.
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Does your N+ live in a cool place with good ventilation? Rev a or b?
Cooling is the number one reason it doesn’t like to to crank up the power.
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That would explain it.
My nucleus+ (A) lives on the closet shelf alongside the router, cable modem and a SOTM 400. All of which put out a generous amount of heat.
When I did the RAM upgrade the nucleus completely cooled off. That might explain the temporary snappier performance that I at first attributed to the increase in RAM. That would also explain the subsequent slow down as it heated back up in the “hotbox” closet. I did keep everything separated, actually drilled a hole in the closet shelf underneath the nucleus to promote airflow and kept the closet door cracked. But not enough.
Time to find a new home for the nucleus. Also has me reconsidering the use of linear power supplies— especially in confined spaces.
Thanks.
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You can buy little fans that run off USB. Put a couple of those in the closet.
I have active cooling in our media closet, cool air drawn in near the bottom and warm air exhaust near the ceiling. Thought I had that issue covered. But that can’t keep up with months of 108 degree outside temp we’ve been experiencing here in Texas. One wall of the closet is next to the fireplace, attic space, and 3/4 inch wall material can’t stop that 140 degree attic temp from seeping through. The 75 degree air drawn in at the bottom of the closet is over 100 degrees at the exhaust fan during the day. Back to the drawing board. Need to insulate the wall next to the attic or maybe install the equipment in a refrigerator with a glass door.
As it is I have to have the equipment cabinet door open during the day with a fan blowing on it. Hard to fight mother nature.
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