Had my RIO for a 2 years and I always had a unreliable power-up experience. 50% of the time I have to run around and reset routers, reboot server, pull main from the back of the unit multiple times until it connects.

Just found this BBS today and am hopeful you guys have a recipe figured out.

I believe I have a SW issue. I believe the boot sequence implemented by ARM is flaky. Is there a way to assign a fixed IP addr to the RIO and skip the pain it is every time I power down my server and my RIO?

thanks,
FM

I am using ARM 1.03 straight from Sonic's website and the original SW - Does tRIO or Jreceiver improve on this boot/basic networking experience?

You're SOL -- the software responsible for acquiring the IP address is in flash. 3rd party solutions are unlikely to help you.

The problem seems to be this:

When the Receiver starts, it toggles on the Ethernet port for a short while to see if it can get link. If it can't, it then turns off the Ethernet port and turns on the HPNA port instead.

Some switches and routers don't respond quickly enough -- because they're busy doing 10/100 or duplex negotiation or some such nonsense, and so the Receiver gives up and turns off the Ethernet port.

The only reliable fix seems to be to use a 10Mbps hub instead of a dual-speed 10/100 hub, router or switch.

You should never need to reboot the server if it's a problem at the Receiver end. You don't have to pull the mains either -- just jab the power switch multiple times in quick succession.

And no, you can't assign a static IP to the Receiver (beyond telling your DHCP server to assign a permanent lease).

The only reliable fix seems to be to use a 10Mbps hub instead of a dual-speed 10/100 hub, router or switch.

Clarification: You don't necessarily need throw out your existing 100 swtich, you can get a cheap old 10mbps hub and daisy-chain it between the receiver and the 100 switch if you like.

Are you suggesting that the receiver(s) and the server should be connected to the 10mbps hub?
I don't understand why putting a 10mbps hub between the receivers and the 100mbps DHCP (router) would make any difference as the DHCP isn't going to respond any faster.

Are you suggesting that the receiver(s) and the server should be connected to the 10mbps hub?

No, only the specific device that's giving you trouble. In this case, the Receiver.

I don't understand why putting a 10mbps hub between the receivers and the 100mbps DHCP (router) would make any difference as the DHCP isn't going to respond any faster.

Because if it's the problem Roger thinks is happening, it isn't happening at the DHCP level. It's at the hardware level, during the initial ethernet handshake between the hub and the device. Inserting a piece of relatively dumb 10mbps-fixed hardware at that point often solves the problem.

Got an antique 10MB hub in the garage and used it as prescribed and VOILA' - works fine!

Clearly a firmware shortcoming that if the product was still shipping Diamond would probably fix. Does anybody have access to the source - Diamond should opensource to allow us to fix it ourselves....

Mucho Danke!
Fronhas

We all have access to that particular bit of code, it is in the Linux kernel that the Receiver boots from. The problem is that even if someone fixed it, re-flashing the firmware on the Receiver is not a simple thing to do. As far as I am aware no end user has ever re-flashed a Rio Receiver.

it isn't happening at the DHCP level.
Got it, thanks. I guess I'll have to look for an old hub.
Anyone hooked more than one reciever to a hub? Each receiver will get more data traffic through a hub, I wonder if that's going to be a different problem.

Anyone hooked more than one reciever to a hub?

Yes. It works fine. Assuming an MP3 bitrate of 128Kbps, and a hub bandwidth of 10Mbps, you can ideally get 10,000/128 = 78 streams at once. Obviously, this doesn't count collisions, overhead, etc., so we'll assume half-duplex transmission (so 5Mbps), 40% efficiency and overhead.

This comes out at 15 streams. If you've got a hub with more than 8 ports, I'd be surprised.

If you've got a hub with more than 8 ports, I'd be surprised.
Me too!.

Actually this isn't so bad as it will save ports on the switch if all receivers are consolidated on a hub!

Any of you folks using a hub notice problems with the reciever's display? I've added a hub which works great to solve the original problem, but now the display isn't refreshing properly so it becomes unreadable in a short amount of time. If I reboot from the web-front-end it is cleared for a short while, but then the problem returns.

Any of you folks using a hub notice problems with the reciever's display?

I'm using four switches and don't have any problems with the display.

Thanks Jerz, I had no problems with switches either. I introduced the hub, as suggested, to improve the "boot-up", but now it seems that the display is suffering.

oops...sorry, I'm about to meet a buddy for a brew though and pick up a hub so I'll try and see. (next time I'll read the rest of the thread)

No worries. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on!

Cheers!

OK I've just added an old (2-3years) 3com hub to a receiver that I was having problems with upstairs when using several switches in a row (between the music server and the rio there are currently 3 switches and a hub (I'm pretty sure anyway. I've got a gob of wire running through the house)). I took the third switch out and replaced with a 3com hub 10mbps and it seems to work for a change (I've been through 4 songs). How long was it before you started having problems?

Pretty quickly. When I did a reboot it happened within a few songs. I am running tRio alpha5, you sig states alpha4 is this correct?

No, that is not correct. I'm running alpha 5. I checked the receiver again this morning and the display looks fine so it ran through a couple of albums without flaking. I'm streaming radio to it now and it seems fine as well.

Good trick with the hub though, I thought there was something wrong with my wiring in that room. I guess my wife will just have to work with a 10mbps hub.

Ok thanks, the differences between your setup and mine are therefore that I'm not running jReceiver and I'm running under Win98SE.

Well, sort-of. I believe the issue is this: at boot, we check the ethernet chip to see if it has link. If it doesn't, we switch to PNA.

Problem is, link can take a while to be attained when connected to some 100mbit hubs (the 10mbit silicon in the receiver doesn't support the low-level (not visible beyond the PHY) speed negotiation stuff that 100mbit silicon does as far as I know).

Could be tweaked, but then you're into the risky business of reflashing the unit, which can leave you with a brick that needs special equipment to resurrect (serial debug dongle).

Hugo

Hi,

So, how did you get arm to work on your Win2K machine? I'm have problems in getting XP to work with ARM.

192.168.0.1 <Router Dlink>
192.168.0.101 <XP Computer>
192.168.0.106 <Rio Receiver>
192.168.0.103 <Rio Central> Turned Off

My setup is

Rio Receiver -> Netgear Hub 104en 10mbs (Uplinked) <-> Dlink Switch Router 614+ <-> XP P4 ARM 1.04 (Computer)