External DAC problems

[Ken Hokugo]

I saw that, too.

I have de-jittering device and its display starts from around 43.90 and
steps up slowly to 44.10 where it locks. It takes a while. I remember Sean
was saying here that it is actually a hardware issue and not easy to be
fixed by SlimDevice guys or SW developers. He said he would talk with the
vendors.

If I may add, not only it takes time to go up to 44.10, but also the
de-jittering device mentioned above loses lock sometimes and locks back in
after a few seconds. This means that SB's digital output is not super
stable or not strong enough? Don't know where this comes from (PS stability
or ?). I don't remember anyone mentioned that here yet. Sean, would you
look into this also?

Ken


From: "michael dowhopoluk" <dowhopoluk (AT) hotmail (DOT) com>
Reply-To: Slim Devices Discussion <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
To: discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com
Subject: [slim] External DAC problems
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 20:13:25 +0000

All,

I have a wireless SB hooked to an external DAC via the digital optical out.
The DAC is an MSB LINK III, and it automatically senses an optical signal.

In normal operation the setup works great. However, when I power down the
SB, after about 5 minutes, the DAC starts clicking on and off like its
sensing a signal. I am guessing that the optical out isn't truly off.

Has anybody else experienced this? I am going to test the digital coax out
tonite.

Thanks,

Michael.

[Harry McQuillen]

I have posted this problem SEVERAL times to this group to little
or no response. I'm running slimserver 5.3.1 release right now
but it has been plaguing me since 5.2. After a while slimserver
just quits. When I go into the preference pane it says "Start Server"
so I guess it knows it has stopped. I can re-start and sometimes
it quits again. I have looked into the activity monitor and am not
super savvy but it seems like this happens when Free memory
is low and inactive memory is high. perl sometimes spawns multiple
mDNSResponderPos processes, whatever they are. I have 1.75GB
of hardwired RAM, one would think that's enough but I also use
safari and I've heard it has a memory leak. I also have a massive
number of page outs.

Anyway does anyone else have this experience running OS X
(10.3.6) or can make sense of some of what I am saying?

Please help me, I just want to listen to my music.

Also, occasionally the music will stop for just a few seconds
and then start back up. This has notably improved with recent
nightlies (I try to stay up to date on them) in that it is a single
pause without static whereas before there were often a clump
with static.)

This is a wired squeezebox and I am using Apple Lossless extensively.

-Harry

[Harry McQuillen]

It just quit again. Can anyone provide me with troubleshooting?
Would my perl crash log be of help?

Here it is:

http://www.mcquillen.com/perl.crash.log


Thanks!

-Harry

[dean]

Thanks for posting the crash log, Harry. Unfortunately, there's no
smoking gun there. Usually when SlimServer crashes it's due to an
error/bug in SlimServer perl code, but not in Perl itself. I hate to
say it, but the most likely cause for a crash like the ones you logged
is either a bad installation of Perl (which is part of the OS) or a
hardware problem (flakey memory, for example).

I'll ask around, but unless you can reproduce the problem with specific
actions or data, I'm tempted to blame the computer.



On Oct 7, 2004, at 7:57 PM, Harry McQuillen wrote:

>
> It just quit again. Can anyone provide me with troubleshooting?
> Would my perl crash log be of help?
>
> Here it is:
>
> http://www.mcquillen.com/perl.crash.log
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Harry
>

[seanadams]

This wouldn't be the first time a crash has been traced to bad RAM...

Anyone know of a good (and free) memory test program for Mac?


On Oct 7, 2004, at 9:50 PM, dean blackketter wrote:

> Thanks for posting the crash log, Harry. Unfortunately, there's no
> smoking gun there. Usually when SlimServer crashes it's due to an
> error/bug in SlimServer perl code, but not in Perl itself. I hate to
> say it, but the most likely cause for a crash like the ones you logged
> is either a bad installation of Perl (which is part of the OS) or a
> hardware problem (flakey memory, for example).
>
> I'll ask around, but unless you can reproduce the problem with
> specific actions or data, I'm tempted to blame the computer.
>
>
>
> On Oct 7, 2004, at 7:57 PM, Harry McQuillen wrote:
>
>>
>> It just quit again. Can anyone provide me with troubleshooting?
>> Would my perl crash log be of help?
>>
>> Here it is:
>>
>> http://www.mcquillen.com/perl.crash.log
>>
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -Harry
>>

[kdf]

I think I saw a version of memtest listed on versiontracker earlier tonight.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17156

-kdf

Quoting Sean Adams <sadams (AT) slimdevices (DOT) com>:

>
> This wouldn't be the first time a crash has been traced to bad RAM...
>
> Anyone know of a good (and free) memory test program for Mac?
>
>
> On Oct 7, 2004, at 9:50 PM, dean blackketter wrote:
>
> > Thanks for posting the crash log, Harry. Unfortunately, there's no
> > smoking gun there. Usually when SlimServer crashes it's due to an
> > error/bug in SlimServer perl code, but not in Perl itself. I hate to
> > say it, but the most likely cause for a crash like the ones you logged
> > is either a bad installation of Perl (which is part of the OS) or a
> > hardware problem (flakey memory, for example).
> >
> > I'll ask around, but unless you can reproduce the problem with
> > specific actions or data, I'm tempted to blame the computer.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Oct 7, 2004, at 7:57 PM, Harry McQuillen wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> It just quit again. Can anyone provide me with troubleshooting?
> >> Would my perl crash log be of help?
> >>
> >> Here it is:
> >>
> >> http://www.mcquillen.com/perl.crash.log
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> -Harry
> >>