A lucky find at a local thrift landed my kid a reasonably current PC for his on line school lessons. I took the laptop guts he was using (Celeron, 8GB, W10 128GB SSD) out to the garage, where I have it connected to a large monitor via HDMI.
I was planning on using a BT connection to a compatible amp board, for some background music when I work out there. This proved to be impossible as it would stutter and stop (reporting file corruption) before even 1 FLAC file song plays through from my NAS. Removing the bluetooth dongle, it plays fine (with only occasional minor hicup) listening with headphones on the headphone output.
The kicker is that any radio stream, and youtube video doesnt do this. And, in the very same spot, a much less Intel Atom powered (1GB mem, SSD) mini-lappy running Linux streamed from the NAS just fine, using the same BT dongle, but was so underpowered it wont render video - at all - from YT.
I replaced the BT amp with one having analog input...so I can listen to something in my NAS hosted collection. Amusingly, my rPi based bedroom system plays from the NAS flawlessly, while the mighty Celeron / W10 / 8GB has all the trouble.
How would I go about diagnosing this? The Celeron laptop MB is mounted bare on a piece of wood. It seems to run anything locally just fine - oscilloscope programs, web browsers, players. Thanks!
I was planning on using a BT connection to a compatible amp board, for some background music when I work out there. This proved to be impossible as it would stutter and stop (reporting file corruption) before even 1 FLAC file song plays through from my NAS. Removing the bluetooth dongle, it plays fine (with only occasional minor hicup) listening with headphones on the headphone output.
The kicker is that any radio stream, and youtube video doesnt do this. And, in the very same spot, a much less Intel Atom powered (1GB mem, SSD) mini-lappy running Linux streamed from the NAS just fine, using the same BT dongle, but was so underpowered it wont render video - at all - from YT.
I replaced the BT amp with one having analog input...so I can listen to something in my NAS hosted collection. Amusingly, my rPi based bedroom system plays from the NAS flawlessly, while the mighty Celeron / W10 / 8GB has all the trouble.
How would I go about diagnosing this? The Celeron laptop MB is mounted bare on a piece of wood. It seems to run anything locally just fine - oscilloscope programs, web browsers, players. Thanks!
Last edited:
I upgraded the driver for the Realtek PCIE network card, which improved it - some. Still is capable of stopping playback at a seemingly arbitrary point, especially if I do anything else (such as browse) on the machine. This is with good network signal strength...
I have the Xyxel NAS326 mapped as a network drive, using a guest login. Copying files from the NAS326 - say to install foobar2000 - doesnt feel as fluid as it should be, particularly with a longish delay before the OS gets around to it. I could understand this if the signal strength was low, but it's fine, according to Windows. Foobar2000 exhibits a similar delay when first accessing a song. This is separate from the "spin-up delay" on the very first NAS access of the day.
I've shut off every service I can find that I can do without on both this machine and the NAS - makes no difference at all.
Finally, does anyone know of a player that buffers, or has the option to buffer the playback data? I realize most players expect the data to be hosted locally, or performance as if hosted locally - but there must be something that first copies the whole song over to memory, checks the copy's validity - then plays it.
Thanks ahead for any response I may get on this.
I have the Xyxel NAS326 mapped as a network drive, using a guest login. Copying files from the NAS326 - say to install foobar2000 - doesnt feel as fluid as it should be, particularly with a longish delay before the OS gets around to it. I could understand this if the signal strength was low, but it's fine, according to Windows. Foobar2000 exhibits a similar delay when first accessing a song. This is separate from the "spin-up delay" on the very first NAS access of the day.
I've shut off every service I can find that I can do without on both this machine and the NAS - makes no difference at all.
Finally, does anyone know of a player that buffers, or has the option to buffer the playback data? I realize most players expect the data to be hosted locally, or performance as if hosted locally - but there must be something that first copies the whole song over to memory, checks the copy's validity - then plays it.
Thanks ahead for any response I may get on this.
Hi I take you updated firmware of the NAS326 to the latest version V5.21(AAZF.9)? Did you try out the Twonky add on? Or maybe it is Minim, I had the NAS326 a long time ago.
Last edited:
Last week a cousin from me came by because he was having the same skipping problem on a Lenovo i5
He runs a Spinning Gym and uses Mixmeister, but it is not software player related, since we tried VLC; Foobar; Media player..In Mixmeister the song position bar gets out of sync with the peaks too.
It is random and happens after a few say 10-15 minutes. When it happens, a reboot cures it.
He too was using bluetooth, but accessing tracks on the SSD not on a NAS.
First we thought it could be some background updating stuff running since it was Microsoft Tuesday. Then we fiddled with the power management settings..
Updated drivers... Nothing helped.
Turns out, it is bluetooth which causes problems, perhaps because many laptops including my old Toshiba use a shared 2.4Ghz WIFI / Bluetooth combo card.
On my Toshiba, using a bluetooth mouse, it gets jerky when browsing.
Funny is ... he uses an external bluetooth device connected via 3.5mm jack to the laptop. Now he uses a cable.
Bear in mind Microsoft was updating drivers with older versions, but I think it was corrected now.
He runs a Spinning Gym and uses Mixmeister, but it is not software player related, since we tried VLC; Foobar; Media player..In Mixmeister the song position bar gets out of sync with the peaks too.
It is random and happens after a few say 10-15 minutes. When it happens, a reboot cures it.
He too was using bluetooth, but accessing tracks on the SSD not on a NAS.
First we thought it could be some background updating stuff running since it was Microsoft Tuesday. Then we fiddled with the power management settings..
Updated drivers... Nothing helped.
Turns out, it is bluetooth which causes problems, perhaps because many laptops including my old Toshiba use a shared 2.4Ghz WIFI / Bluetooth combo card.
On my Toshiba, using a bluetooth mouse, it gets jerky when browsing.
Funny is ... he uses an external bluetooth device connected via 3.5mm jack to the laptop. Now he uses a cable.
Bear in mind Microsoft was updating drivers with older versions, but I think it was corrected now.
Last edited:
BT shares the traditional 2.4 GHz band with WiFi, not to mention is often handled by the same hardware, so there definitely is some potential for interference there - either directly via RF or via time sharing issues.
Update ..
My cousin bought a new PC & other brand Bluetooth speaker.
It is software or drivers related.
Today he phoned me telling the saga continues...
I would try with a wired connection and disabling WI-FI for a start.
I remember an issue I had one time with Logitech mice jerkiness & pen drives or external HDD's when they were near the receiver...It was reported on many forums.
My cousin bought a new PC & other brand Bluetooth speaker.
It is software or drivers related.
Today he phoned me telling the saga continues...
I would try with a wired connection and disabling WI-FI for a start.
I remember an issue I had one time with Logitech mice jerkiness & pen drives or external HDD's when they were near the receiver...It was reported on many forums.