MiniPC Audio Disconnection Issues

[mfenske]

Picked up a reasonably priced MiniPC about a month ago to handle the daily tasks that my Mac Mini M4 Pro doesn't (or can't). Recently, I upgraded my audio system to a MiniDSP Flex Balanced unit that connects to a Buckeye Amps Nypex NC502 2 channel amp (and Klipsch RP600M bookshelves) and a Klipsch R12SW. The issue I'm having is that after idling for a bit the audio signal will drop out and the only way to fix it is to reboot. That's a pain.

Anyone know of a way to avoid that happening? Also, decided to try Roon on my Mac instead which is connected to the Flex via USB Dac/Optical. From what I understand USB SHOULD offer better potential quality/bitrate but if it's unreliable am I losing too much with Optical? Thanks!

 

[staticV3]

USB power saving options like USB selective suspend are to blame. Google is your friend there.

Instead of rebooting, you can probably get the DAC to be recognized again by going into the Sound Control Panel->Playback->miniDSP Flex->right-click->Disable->right-click->Enable

but that's a workaround, not a fix.

No, you're not losing any quality by switching to Optical.

 

[Berwhale]

Have you tried using the miniDSP ASIO driver?

 

[Saponetto]

Also consider that many minipcs (mainly those with N95, N100, N5100 CPUs) also manage the thermal assessment by throttling the bus speed and this often causes peripherals stuttering.
Handyman's workaround is to set the OS energy management to "performance" or similar, of course at the expense of higher thermal levels.

 

[respice finem]

All of the above, but should it not work, try a different USB port. I had a PC that had stable DAC connection on one port only.

 

[mfenske]

Man, those settings are buried in Win 11. Adjusted the power settings so we'll see what happens.

Any ideas about USB vs Optical? I can't seem to be able to enable ASIO in any of the PC apps I'm using (Mediamonkey, Roon, Tidal)

 

[staticV3]

Any ideas about USB vs Optical?

See #2

I can't seem to be able to enable ASIO in any of the PC apps I'm using

Enabling ASIO first requires installing the miniDSP UAC2 driver package, which is done through the miniDSP Device Console.

Check the user manual for more: https://docs.minidsp.com/product-manuals/flex/index.html

Roon supports ASIO natively while Tidal uses Wasapi Exclusive (just as good as ASIO). They call it Exclusive mode.

 

[mfenske]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the assist!

 

[phofman]

Does the miniPC have built-in TOSLINK/optical? If not, then it would require some additional audio device like USB-> TOSLINK (again USB with its power management) or PCI-e -> TOSLINK (PCI-e often not available in miniPCs).

IMO just disabling the power management for the USB devices should do fine. TOSLINK is an extra step, IMO not needed.

 

[multichannel_guy]

Anyone know why ONLY YOUTUBE (no issues with youtube music, no issues with foobar and so on) would keep dropping out/coming back on, be intermittent on a USB dac connected to PC? Boggles my mind..