"Official" Olive Thread Opus 4, Opus 6, Melody 2, Olive 2, Olive 4/ 4HD, 06HD - Page 69

Hi Eric,

for the first impression go to this link
and begin to read at the photo of two tubes

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1091695/official-olive-thread-opus-4-opus-6-melody-2-olive-2-olive-4-4hd-06hd/1620#post_21043645

greetings
Mats

P.S: I think Marc permits me to give you this info
Edited by Uthlande - 10/18/12 at 4:36am

Hi olive-puzzle freaks,

does anybody made first experiences with one of the newer WD 2TB green HDDs (5400rpm) and swapped them with any HDD in the olive ?


When I understood right, the WD20EACS is about 4 years old, followed by the WD20EADS, then came the WD20EARS und at last the WD20EARX.

They differ from each other in cache memory size (16MB EACS, 32MB EADS, 64MB EARS/EARX) and interfaces (SATA-2: EACS, EADS und EARS / SATA-3: EARX) .


Today I am running a flawless 2 TB Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS / 5900 RPM in my olive 4 which should become my cloned HDD for ‘storage disasters beyond all expectations‘ from now on.


What do you think : What speaks against or for each WD to swap it with the original HDD ?
f.i. Is it possible to use a 64MB cache or the IntelliPower™ instead of fixed 5400rpm ?


Thanks
Mats
Edited by Uthlande - 10/18/12 at 5:26am

Hi Mats,

I think that any drive can do, if it does not consumes too much energy, is silent as a floating feather, and compatible with SATA2. A bigger cache is just nice. The speed does not matter, the slowest drive suffices, and is likely more quiet than the faster ones.
I have had a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS in my Olive 4 just as you have, but I can't say it was flawless. Foremost the unit shook like a fearing feather (eh..., it vibrated as hell), it now and then stopped operating at all when the Olive checked it, and it gave errors when playing music. It was no fun.
Now I have abonded it as a backup drive, so it may serve me once in two months.
I replaced it with a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003. It's silent, does not vibrate and operates without problems.
In my second Olive there is a 1 TB drive, and I consider to replace it with the same 2 Tb drive. I just wait a bit till the prices drop further.

Thanks for replying Eric KC. There is much more to say, but it's a good start. I remember that I gave a link to an article too, but finding it in almost 70 pages is no fun.

Marc

Okay, I found the article, on my pc.
If someone here speaks Dutch, or at least can understand it, he/she can also find the article here: http://www.audiofreaks.nl/index.php?page=articledetail&articleid=206
And surely you can find much much more about the modifications on the same forum. Just look for unexpected terms as 'gehakt' (= rinced meat), 'trollensnot', 'audiotegels' and so on.
If it gave not such a beautiful result, I would not post this.
Unfortunately, I don't think that it is easy to get the same result if you live outside the Netherlands.

Here (again) is the English article
Even_terug_in_de_tijd-ENGELS.pdf 93k .pdf file

Hi Marc,

thank you for your - as always qualified - information !

Your experience with a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 is interesting and new for me.
Before I thought only 5400rpm-WDs were 'silent as a feather'.
So I will look for such a Seagate, too - perhaps it's cheaper than one of the WD green ones.

After installing the new one in my Olive 4 I will use the older Seagate LP as a system-copy/-backup-medium and synchronise this clone every 2 months.
So I am able to recover a broken Olive system anytime it's necessary.

In addition I store my PC-ripped flac-files on an external and mirrored HDD to build up a music library which I can transfer to any other musicserver in the future.

To save my music totally I also think about your idea to use a second Olive 4 as a spare parts depot ..... perhaps eBay will help.

Mats
Edited by Uthlande - 10/18/12 at 12:15pm

Mats,

I wonder if one can still mirror the olive disk as easy as it was a year ago. At least the first partition is quite weird, and can't be copied the normal way. It contains errors, that is, if it is treated as an EXT2 or 3 partition, and once fsck has 'repaired' it, your Olive won't start anymore.So, take care.
Also consider the trouble people have with using the recovery procedure. It mostly fails. is till did not try the latest version of it for my Olive 4, but the older ones have all given some trouble. Once I got it so far that all the partitions were there, and only the one with the music (part. 7) was empty. I could mirror that one from an other complete disk, and so i got a running Olive.

If you do the mirror thing, don't forget to share your experience.

Marc

Hi Marc,

I am sorry that I explained my 2-step-'modus operandi' of saving music a bit ambiguous and will try to correct my bad English :

First I am always ripping CDs on my PC and copy these flac-files to an external HDD-box.
This box contains two separate HDDs and mirrors my music under RAID1.
So I get a double-secure copy of my standard tagged music library and will be able to migrate to any other music server in the future - independently whether it will be from Olive or any other company.

Additionally I clone (1:1 !) the whole Olive4-internal HDD every two months - including all original partitions (system 4.1.9., db,... - everything)
So I will be prepared if the installed Olive4-HDD gets broken and I am forced to swap it with the clone in my desk.
All cloning steps are made automatically by Win7-Acronis MigrateEasy which identifies and handles Linux Ext2, Ext3 and other.

In my capacity as a linux- ignorant I only have to connect the original Olive-HDD and the target-HDD with my notebook and start MigrateEasy 7.0

When the cloning-procedure is done I took the original Olive-HDD and put it back into my Olive4.
The 1:1 clone of the Olive4-HDD will be kept safe in my desk and only be installed if the original HDD will fail.

This way of 'saving my music' is a little bit inconvenient, but it works fine especially for linux-ignorants like me.

And so I did and completed it successfully in the last months.


Greetings
Mats

Hi Mats,

Have you recently tested the cloned image? Can it really boot up the Olive?
I don't know how Acronis works, so maybe it does a perfect job. Everything I can use does a sanity-check an repair-service before actually cloning, therewith ruining the 1st partition.

Marc

Hi again Marc,

yes I`ve already tested the clone when I swapped the factory-built-in WD 750GB HDD with a new Seagate LP 2TB one – that was under 4.1.9. in Mai 2012.

But after what you told me now I will check my approach, clone that 2TB Seagate LP and swap it again with a newer one (f.i. WD green or Seagate Barracuda ST2000DL003) .

I will tell you if it works or not …. first I’ve to choose and order a new HDD.

Mats

Ok Mats, interesting.
If it works, than the clever Linux imaging tools took me by the nose.

Anyway, i still have to check if dd (= a simple byte-copy utility) will do the job for the first partition.
I'll await your experience.

Marc

Finally I have gone through all 69 pages to try finding a way to save my4HD.

Not yet find a way but it is informative enough to give me some hints.

EricKC, any news from Olive regarding you piece?

I will try to open my 04HD today to check the power supplies and cable first.

Maybe I will try with a new hard disk too.

Hi Marc,

this weekend I cloned my internal Olive4-HDD (Seagate LP 2TB) to a new WD EADS 2TB with the help of Acronis MigrateEasy7.0.

The cloning process of the HDD containing 900 GB of music files took nearly 20 hours.

Installed in the Olive4 the HDD clone booted as flawless as before the Seagate.

So I can put my mind at rest that my strategy to save my Olive4-HDD including all partitions still is O.K. and preserves against failures in the future.

Mats

Mats, congratulations!

That cloning the disk is a time consuming process is no surprise.
That this works flawlessly under Windows is!
Now I assume that Acronis doesn't do any checks, and just makes an exact copy, even from bad content (which is jist fine!).

What I do (which I posted earlier) is sync two partitions with rsync:
rsync -rvua --del even/* /bu
That copies all new stuff from even to bu, where even is the updated partition and bu has the old stuff. It also takes into account what is deleted on the updated partition.
Until now this works very well, and takes half an hour each month (depending on the amount of new cd's).

With Knoppix this could be done by you too.

Marc

Hi Michael,

No word yet - I sent them a follow-up email over the weekend.

They have had it for just over a month now. Funny, during that period of time I have a) rediscovered vinyl (I am a jazz fan - bought some of the Music Matters Blue Note 45s which sound great) and b) Spotify (obviously does not approach the Olive in terms of sound quality, but the selection is staggering).

Will keep you posted.

Eric

In hifi-forum.de you can read that


'the german Olive distributors GP Acoustics GmbH. (GP Acoustics is the manufacturer of KEF and Celestion) canceled their contract with Olive because some customers are waiting for a replacement device since 12 months.

As long as the music servers were running flawless everything seems to be O.K., but if they were sent to Olive ….!?

Furthermore Olive should be such a bad communication partner for GP Acoustics, who are well reputated in Germany .'


I hope Olive will review their service strategy in our region !


Mats
Edited by Uthlande - 10/22/12 at 11:15am

Hi Eric and friends,

I am so happy to tell you all that I have finally restore the system of my 04HD.

So I would like to share my bloody experience to everyone and hope it helps a bit or giving a new hint to solve the problem.

My story .......

At first I had the problem of having a line on my screen when playing the music.

Then I had a frozen screen days later.

Then I updated the latest firmware (forget the version already) but it cannot solve the problem.

Then I have the frozen and broken screen when playing music. I contacted Olive and told that a new firmware would fix the problem.

After I updated with the new firmware, I had a flashing screen. I told by Olive that I should turn off the 04HD, unplug it for 30 minutes and the problem will be gone after reboot. But it didn't. But I could still play music via iPad and the opus via Firefox.

I called my dealer in Hong Kong and see if they could help. That was 15 months after my purchase. 1 month after the expiry of the 14 months warranty. I was told that the main board needed to be replaced and it cost me over HK$6,000 which is more then 30% I paid just 15 months ago for the 04HD. I was more then happy to pay around 10% to 15% for it but for HK$6,000, I could buy a mac mini already. I will pay for the R&D for the 04HD and that was the reason I paid HK$22,000 at first. But I don't think it worth to pay HK$6,000 just for a slow cpu running simply Linux with limited RAM on it. Also I believed that it was a software problem more then a hardware problem. It is because the problems are different every time and it changes after new firmware.

My system was then in a stage that it worked sometime for a day and sometime for 2 minutes and sometime just could not boot up.

So I decided to back up the music and headed for a restore of the system as I still believed that it is more like a software problem.

The backing up was super smooth ( so it is another sign that it is not a hardware problem).

I wrote to Olive care for instruction. I was told to download a zip file, unzip it, saved the files to a USB drive formatted in FAT32. (can checked the details in my post in page 68 http://www.avsforum.com/t/1091695/official-olive-thread-opus-4-opus-6-melody-2-olive-2-olive-4-4hd-06hd/2010#post_22442611

But the restore frozen every time in the middle. I tried 40 -50 times and it frozen at different stage every time and gave me a broken screen.

So I have nothing but a broken computer with an empty hard disk. The restore cleaned my Olive OS and I cannot restore one back. OK, it was a total lost. Since I got nothing to lose, I decided to open it up and at least check up the hard disk.

Thanks Marc for his sharing and PM, I have a better idea of this Olive machine. It is basically nothing more then a slow small computer running on Linux with a major function of playing music. So if I can DIY my desktop, I should be able to fix this Olive.

So I took Marc advise to read the pages under this thread .... wow...it took me also a week to finish but it worth.

Today, I opened my 04HD again. First of all, I would like to check the power supplies, see if the voltage will drop during the restore and give me a frozen screen.

First you need to have unscrew two special screws:



This is the tool you need, you can find it in your hardware store in your town


Inside the 04HD








The restore hanged before many time but this time can complete more then 60% on the first trial.
So will be because of the over heat problem on the main board? It slowed down a bit at 70% so
I used a hair dryer to boot it up. In fact, it works !!! Yeah !!!!


After the restore completed at 100%, the system will reboots twice in a few seconds. But
in fact, the restore is not completed yet, after the two reboots, the system will tell you "System
is starting, please wait" but in fact, the system is still running with your USB. At first I thought it
hangs again so I soft reboot it but the system seems not responding. So I power off the unit and
unplug it for an hours. Reboot the system with the USB insert and give it another hours to see.
Finally I notice the screen change a bit and it tells me "Finalizing system recovery, please wait .."
How dump is the programer in Olive? They should always put something which keep moving
to indicate the process is still running instead of frozen. Because we will never know if it is frozen or not
if the screen is not changing or moving at all !!!


So lucky me, I got my 04HD back


But the problem is I cannot restore my music from the back up. Anyone help? I remember
someone have the same problem before but not sure if we are running the same SW version.
I was told in the E-mail it is 4.1.8 but the system shows 4.1.3


I have try ripping a CD with it and it is ok and play the whole album without hanging or frozen screen. I will not update the SW at this stage.
I have the 04HD on for 2 hours and found it extremely hot. I guess there must be a problem with the SW that keep the HD keep running for 2 hours
to generate that kind of heat. In fact, my 04HD had the same sign when it first arrived my home. It stopped producing that much high temperature
after two days.

Also I found that I lost all my internet radio stations too so I guess the restore does not have the information in it.
No big deal, I only listen to the Classical FM102 from Germany. I can add it back later.

My next step is to see if I will have the old problem again later (maybe caused by the over heat of the main board????)
Then I need to find a way to restore my music from my back up. (but I have ripped all my CD
to my NAS already so maybe I can just transfer them from my NAS or just play the music directly from the NAS)

Once again, thanks Marc and everyone who contributed to this thread so far.

Hope I can have good news later for you all.

Hi Michael,

many thanks for the detailed report of your troubleshooting and the interesting pictures of the inside.

In my Olive4 the flat cables are lying directly on the motherboard and cover it like a heat isolation layer. After your experience with accumulated heat I think I should put them aside a little or better swap them with longer ones that could be layed more 'breezy'. Your idea using a hair dryer was funny but inventive.

A pity that Olive supported so unqualified when you needed them.

Your shown problems stengthens me in holding a clone of the actual Olive-HDD. This 1:1 clone is immediately available and so my lifebelt for the future.

Remember that the restore process was often failing in the older SW versions. Your system 4.1.3. was released in August 2010. Maybe you should update to some newer releases. But for the moment you can’t use the actual 4.2.0. with its new backup/restore procedure.

Mats
Edited by Uthlande - 10/23/12 at 5:44am

Thanks Mats.

I was thinking as my back is created by the latest 4.2.0 or 4.1.9 not too sure, will that be the reason this old OS cannot handle a backup created by a future OS?

Maybe I shall run the 04HD via NAS for a while first to make sure I have no hardware problem. Then I can decide the next move.

Thanks Mats.

I was thinking as my back up is created by the latest 4.2.0 or 4.1.9, not too sure, will that be the reason this old OS cannot handle a backup created by a future OS?

Maybe I shall run the 04HD via NAS for a while first to make sure I have no hardware problem. Then I can decide the next move.

Further update, I test drive the 04HD by playing the files in my NAS and find it a bit hot after running 30 minutes. I open the 04HD and find that the HD is really hot. But the problem is that I am not playing the file from this hard disk, I just run the OS stored in it. Is that OS really so intensive and making the hard disk so hot? I remember the 04HD should not be that hot before, except for the first two days.

Anyone any sharing?

Photo was taken a while after I switch off and unplug the 04HD so temp should be even higher.


Edited by Michaelchowhk - 10/22/12 at 8:36pm

Hi Michael,

Thanks a lot for your very detailed and informative post about opening and recovering your Olive. Beautiful pictures!

The recovery has release 4.1.3 on it, but this is, as you know, very old and it contains many bugs that Olive has repaired in the newer releases. I remember that old releases had a problem not stopping the hard disk after the 'hard' work of playing some music. That annoyed me a bit, but the newer updates have done away with this problem. Also, with 4.1.3. you won't be able to restore the music backup which you made with probably release 4.2.0 (that is dated 23-4-2012, so pretty old now).
The hard disk will keep running when you play internet radio, and I think a NAS will be no exception.
In my case, when the Olive has done a decent job of editing, which prevent it from pausing the hard disk, the disk will be too hot to handle. In a Olive 0xHD there is more space used than in my old Olive 4's, and more stuff to be steamed up (the DAC of course), so they will easily run hotter.

Different disks will show different temperatures, mostly depending on the amount of current they need. If you look for an alternative disk keep that in mind.

All in all I think that the newer Olives are not meant for hot areas.
But a fan inside will be no fun.

Marc

Hi Michael,


Last week (while looking for WD green HDDs) I read an older article from the respectable german IT-magazine CHIP where your WD20EVDS was tested ( http://www.chip.de/artikel/Test-Die-besten-3-5-Zoll-SATA-Festplatten-ab-1-5-TByte-2_37439523.html ) .

The testers praise this HDD for silent running and speed but also critizise that this HDD gets too hot while running .

They metered an excessive temperature compared to other green HDDs in this test.

The WD was running with 46,6 degree Celsius (sometimes over 50 degree Celsius) . Compared to the Samsung F2 EcoGreen HD502HI which was running with only 25 degree Celsius.

So the testers recommended an active fan cooling when using this type of HDD.

But when you have to install a fan when using this HDD, this could not be the right HDD for a music server , I suppose ??

On the other hand my WD20EADS was copying uninterrupted for 20 hours in a closely spaced USB-box and only got warm but not hot !

My vague understanding is : Perhaps your HDD runs flawed and should be swapped for testing an other one !?


Mats


P.S: Sorry for calling you Eric first
Edited by Uthlande - 10/23/12 at 7:19am

Wow Michael, that is all pretty impressive. Thanks for posting and congratulations on your outcome!!

Thanks Eric. Sorry to hear about your case but I think you will receive your 04HD back soon. My case suggested that your 04HD highly suffered the same reasion as mine. The firmware somehow create a bug, making one of the parts on the main board over heat or there is a bad file in your hard disk. So back up the music, restore the system should be the way. Not changing the main board, as suggested by the bloody dealer here and wanted to charge me over 30% of the price I paid for this 04HD. I will report this case back to both the Olive and the dealer here, shame on them by keep saying that it is a hardware problem.

Thanks Marc and Mat for your input too. I have updated the firmware to 4.2.0 last night and restored my back up. It worked this time. It took 10 hours as I only have a small collection.









One thing I have noticed is that when I turn on the Olive now and get the logo and clock, I cannot press the control button to jump me to the next screen. I must touch the LCD.

Also one or two of the album artworks changed. Maybe the system auto search the database again for an update artwork. God know!

I hope the new firmware will fix the hot hard disk problem. Then have to plan to clone my hard disk to new, cooler green hard disk. But as Marc and other said, there is a problem in cloning with 4.2.0?

Will keep you guys posted.

I just got a new Olive 6 HD and am trying to learn how to use it. One issue I'm having is with with classical music on Maestro. Some classical CDs end up under "unknown composer" and within that category
they're listed under "unknown work." These are often fragments of a composition--one movement of a four movement symphony for example. Obviously, it doesn't sound right to listen to three movements of a symphony and have one missing. Does anyone know how I can move these fragments so they join the rest of the piece? Is there a way to prevent this fragmentation from happening in the future? Thanks for any help. Also, sorry, I posted previously in the wrong place.

I have no issues with classical music and my Olive. But posting instructions with my Android phone is no fun.
I hope to give more details when I'm at a pc.

Marc

I would like to know too. I have some album has been separated by Olive into two album.

That's just a matter of dragging the tracks from one album to the other.
Splitting albums in parts happens sometimes if you import cd's from a pc. If you rip them on the Olive this does not happen.

Marc

Nope, it happens even I ripped the CD by Olive.

Michael,

I ripped about 1700 cd's on my Olive, and about 100 on my pc. Seldom I found albums shattered in pieces, and as far as I remember it was always with an imported cd.
But never mind.
Dragging the tracks will help.
Classical music needs some more care.

Marc

I only have a Musica and an "original" Hifidelio Opus, not a Olive-designed product, but this has happened to me, as well. I found it to happen if I edited metadata such as artist name or album title after importing but before conversion to FLAC was complete. Apparently, anything not yet converted retained the original metadata, which resulted sometimes in albums being split when I looked for them in the file hierarchy. (With these older devices, there's no drag and drop in the music directory, so one needs to reedit the data to move the files, which may leave behind an empty directory where the files appeared originally. Quite messy.) My solution is never to edit metadata until the entire album has converted from aiff to FLAC.