I bought a NUC7i5BNK w 16G RAM back in 2017, installed ROCK and haven’t touched it since except for the ROCK updates.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a new, considerable lag when navigating through Roon.
Obviously my library has grown in that time so it could be that I’ve just reached a new threshold. Or that little NUC running 24/7 is getting slower in its old age.
Maybe a recent software update is creating new demands?
Given the price of RAM these days I’d rather not buy something new if I don’t have to. I see this model is still on the supported hardware list.
Anything I can triage to try to improve things before I throw money at the problem? Is there another BIOS update I should investigate?
ROCK (and Nucleus) does not get faster with added RAM. It doesn’t swap memory to disk (other than most other operating systems).
If it doesn’t have enough RAM, it simply crashes. So if it doesn’t crash, there is enough RAM for the library size and adding any more simple means that the additional RAM will be unused - it doesn’t make it faster.
So the slowdown has other causes. How many tracks are in your library (local plus streaming)?
I thought I uploaded a pic. Let’s try again. Fixed the original post.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t thinking of adding RAM. I was wondering if I need a whole new NUC, which may require a RAM purchase depending on what I can scavenge from the existing unit.
I have the same NUC and it is still going strong with more tracks than you. However, I have opened and cleaned any dust out several times over the years.
I suspect your NUC should still be ok. Maybe as mentioned, it needs a cleaning and/or thermal paste on the processor renewed.
While not a NUC, I’m running a Salkstream III, bought in 2016, which is just a small form computer running Arch Linux in a fanless case with an Intel i5 processor, 8gb RAM, and a single HDD which houses Roon Server and my music local collection.
Despite not meeting Roon’s current recommended specs (separate SSD for the OS/Roonserver), it’s performance is still snappy and even handles my multichannel DSD (with added PCM conversion+DSP) recordings no problem.
While my track count is smaller (27k, local+Qobuz), I don’t think that’s the issue.
What does it say about me if I mark this as the likely solution? Will I still be welcomed in polite society? Will the “unboxing” clean up video trend on gross-out Reddit boards?
Thanks everyone for the sanity check. Time to do a little more than shooting air through the side vents and crack it open. Good to know as long as the hardware is still working this unit should continue to serve me for a while longer.
I have a NUC8i3 and noticed the same lag in he recent weeks running ROCK. I think the issue is with this version of ROCK. I reinstalled the NUC with Ubunyu + Linux version of Roon and it’s snappy again.
I have a similar issue with my year old NucBox G5 running ROCK. Intel 12th gen N95 CPU and 12 gb RAM. 110k track library (local and Qobuz). It ran great but now it is running laggy and playback will take seconds to start.
As a test I’ve installed Roon as well on my Lenovo laptop running on Linux Mint. Which acts as my 24/7 Media and fileserver. Roon just flies on it. The laptop has 16 gb of RAM paired with an 8th gen Intel i7 CPU.
It would seem that there might be an issue with ROCK.
No issue with my ROCK. It’s possible that you are running into the well known slowdown during background maintenance tasks. (Maybe the time window when this happens might not be static).
There is a fix for this in the latest EA build by being able to schedule maintenance to a specific time span.
