Dell Digital Audio Receiver Woes
Jake Richter
Audio Receiver, but none of it addresses a pretty fatal flaw, in my
mind. I've had one of these boxes since mid-December, and have been
unable to get it to work in anything other than a simple peer-to-peer
network using an Ethernet cross-over cable.
My home/office network consists of several hubs, with a CISCO router
with NAT/firewall to our leased line. A Linux server acts as a DHCP
server. When plugged into the network, the Dell DAR properly gets
assigned a valid IP address on my network, and in fact is temporarily
visible to the DAR server software, but for some reason I can't
fathom, it will not recognize the server software itself.
Very frustrating, with the result that I either have to dedicate a
computer to be just the music server, or I use the DAR as a dust
collector (something it does quite well).
Anyone have any thoughts? Dell's customer service hung up on me four
times while I was trying to resolve this, and their on-line support
wasn't much better.
Jake
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Jake Richter, Managing Director - NetTech N.V.
Kaya Rotterdam 2, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
Phone: +599-717-6773 FAX: +599-717-7854 E-mail: ja...@nettech.an
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phi...@real.com
simple sw update or such),
While I can't offer any help on this problem, it points out what I think
to be a significant architectural difference between the various devices
- active vs "passive" server software. For me, the more moving parts
the greater chance for this kind of error. In that sense, the audiotron
design carries a desirable simplicity. However, I freely admit that
there may be an advantage to having the server software - can anyone
enlighten me as to what it brings to the party?
Phil
In article <m5h58t8rmbojdnl6o...@4ax.com>,
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Robert Surtees
have one machine with two NICs - one to LinkSys switch / cable modem, other
to another LinkSys switch and a few plain 10/100 hubs. About a dozen PCs in
all. Win98 all around with internet connection sharing enabled. Works great.
Plug it in and it's playing tunes in a few seconds.
There really is only the one screen to configure the thing -- IP range, net
mask, autoconfig, and "make music available on this adaptor", so if it ain't
working with your setup you're probably SOL.
Do you have any 100BT only hubs in the mix? The (my?) Dell is strictly 10BT.
I had an old 100BT only hub that caused a few installation headaches.
There is also a version 1.03 of the server software posted on the DELL site
although I think it only corrects some issues with WMA files. Could be worth
a try.
Best of luck. It really is a great gadget. Use it all the time. Zero
problems.
"Jake Richter" <ja...@nettech.an> wrote in message
news:m5h58t8rmbojdnl6o...@4ax.com...
Jake Richter
>While this is clearly a bug that should get fix (hopefully via a
>simple sw update or such),
>
>While I can't offer any help on this problem, it points out what I think
>to be a significant architectural difference between the various devices
>- active vs "passive" server software. For me, the more moving parts
>the greater chance for this kind of error. In that sense, the audiotron
>design carries a desirable simplicity. However, I freely admit that
>there may be an advantage to having the server software - can anyone
>enlighten me as to what it brings to the party?
For me? Headaches :-(
The Audiotron sounds like a better solution for my network setup.
Jake Richter
wrote:
>No help really -- only to say in a vanilla network it works OK for me. I
>have one machine with two NICs - one to LinkSys switch / cable modem, other
>to another LinkSys switch and a few plain 10/100 hubs. About a dozen PCs in
>all. Win98 all around with internet connection sharing enabled. Works great.
>Plug it in and it's playing tunes in a few seconds.
I tried to do a dual NIC install on a Windows Me system, but it hung
whenever one NIC was being accessed at the same time the other NIC
was. One NIC was attached to the Dell DAR, and the other to my 'net.
It was the only way I was able to get the DAR to run at all, and it
required moving the computer out to my entertainment system area so I
could have it near the DAR without running cables everywhere.
>
>There really is only the one screen to configure the thing -- IP range, net
>mask, autoconfig, and "make music available on this adaptor", so if it ain't
>working with your setup you're probably SOL.
Nope. Didn't work on the 'net.
>
>Do you have any 100BT only hubs in the mix? The (my?) Dell is strictly 10BT.
>I had an old 100BT only hub that caused a few installation headaches.
All my hubs are 10/100.
>There is also a version 1.03 of the server software posted on the DELL site
>although I think it only corrects some issues with WMA files. Could be worth
>a try.
I've downloaded that. When I've got my patience quotient rebuilt I may
go and try it.
>
>Best of luck. It really is a great gadget. Use it all the time. Zero
>problems.
Lucky you :-(
scot...@my-deja.com
Jake my old friend... I never would have expected to run into you here
on this forum! Lordy I miss the old Panacea days.... The King,
Jay "Parchisi", Intorcio, Brad Zehring, and the rest. We've come a
long way since the AutoDesk Compuserve forum and AEC bashes... eh?
And you... retiring at the ripe old age of what... 15?? <g>
I still get your invites for the annual bashes... and one of these days
I MUST take you up on one of them. Till then... take care my friend!
Scott B.
Robert Surtees
RIO Receiver User Guide posted there is much better than the DELL version
and includes some troubleshooting tips. Might give that a shot.
http://www.riohome.com/default.asp?menu=support&submenu=Rio&item=manuals&pro
duct=Rio_Receiver
The User Guide has the troubleshooting stuff. While your there check out
the RIO Volt CD/MP3 player. Looks pretty cool. I have the Phillips
Expanium. Great for business trips. A couple of CD's and you have a weeks
worth of tunes.
Sorry about your Dell. My guess is it's either your firewall or too-smart
hubs. In my line of work I have seen 10BT devices have difficulty operating
with some hubs - recently a zippy bazillion $ Cisco job. I'm sure the sys
admin just didn't have it configured properly and that it should work, but I
must say I got great satisfaction replacing it with a $50 no-name hub.
As for the WinME problem, well, I'd chalk that one up to WinME. I have it
running on a few of my machines and it's always behaved a bit weird. The
RIO user guide does reference a problem specific to ME but I don't think it
applies to your problem.
One last bit. There is a difference in the startup process between powering
on/off using the power button and actually unplugging the unit. When/if you
try again I would recommend unplugging between tries. I noticed when
installing the new server version that the unit would only download the new
version if I unplugged it. Must go through a different startup sequence in
this case.
"Jake Richter" <ja...@nettech.an> wrote in message
news:dhr78t41ttpkqhb5k...@4ax.com...
Jake Richter
>Jesus Harold Christ!!!
>
>Jake my old friend... I never would have expected to run into you here
>on this forum! Lordy I miss the old Panacea days.... The King,
>Jay "Parchisi", Intorcio, Brad Zehring, and the rest. We've come a
>long way since the AutoDesk Compuserve forum and AEC bashes... eh?
A very long way, Scott :-)
>And you... retiring at the ripe old age of what... 15?? <g>
Not retired, and sadly not so young anymore.
>I still get your invites for the annual bashes... and one of these days
>I MUST take you up on one of them. Till then... take care my friend!
You too!
Jake Richter
wrote:
>RIO has recently updated there web site with regard to the RIO Receiver. The
>RIO Receiver User Guide posted there is much better than the DELL version
>and includes some troubleshooting tips. Might give that a shot.
>
>http://www.riohome.com/default.asp?menu=support&submenu=Rio&item=manuals&pro
>duct=Rio_Receiver
>
Thanks very much for this link! I've gone and sent a message to
SonicBlue/S3/Rio/etc. per their instructions in the FAQ on Dell
issues. Hopefully this will produce some better support!
The Hubs all work with 10BaseT - I checked that. That would leave the
firewall in my Cisco router as the only other piece of
hardware/software I have real control over, but I've been unable to
get Dell to provide me with the ports used by the DAR to make sure
that those ports aren't being blocked.
Thanks again,
Peek
wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Feb 2001 18:21:26 GMT, phi...@real.com wrote:
>
>>While this is clearly a bug that should get fix (hopefully via a
>>simple sw update or such),
>>
>>While I can't offer any help on this problem, it points out what I think
>>to be a significant architectural difference between the various devices
>>- active vs "passive" server software. For me, the more moving parts
>>the greater chance for this kind of error. In that sense, the audiotron
>>design carries a desirable simplicity. However, I freely admit that
>>there may be an advantage to having the server software - can anyone
>>enlighten me as to what it brings to the party?
>
>For me? Headaches :-(
>
>The Audiotron sounds like a better solution for my network setup.
Would you care to expand on that? I've looked at www.audiotron.com but
my Norwegian is a little rusty.
I guess my ideal device would just play network streams that were sent
to it via ethernet. Ethernet in, line out. The software on the
computer would handle everything else.
OK, maybe add a display that can be controlled from the network as
well as a IR receiver that can send command codes back. All
intelligence would reside in the (Linux) server.
I'm just waiting until someone with the means gets the same idea and
builds something affordable.
A spinoff could be ethernet (IP-addressable) speakers that could be
used as a PA system, just broadcast the stuff over the network.
Or add a microphone and end up with a Voice Over IP phone ;-).
OK, I'll stop now, but I think there could be a market for simple &
cheap ethernet audio components.
Regards,
Peek
Ken Burner
better than the DDAR, since it supports streaming and has a digital output.
See the following url for my list of hard disk jukeboxes and audio net
interfaces:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/kb13/mp3/
--On Wednesday, February 14, 2001 12:29 PM +0000 Peek