Thanks Juan,

I will give it another shot on the 8x slot and with the latest driver. If it is a motherboard/chipset thing I should end up with similar -cr*ppy- results.

In the mean time Peter is tapped into the multiverse and preparing xx07 to new groundbreaking heights. Like all I am on the verge of boiling with anticipation!

Regards, Coen

Hi Juan,

According to bios settings the igp is disabled when another graphics card has been inserted. I cannot explicitly disable the igp. I used it on the 16x slot.

Maybe you're right and is some stuff still running on the igp graphics side. I also distrust any extra loading of the psu, it should be able handle the extra 15watts easily, but probably with some extra noise on the important 12v supply.

Do you have any gigabyte graphics supporting software running?

Regards, Coen

The forum is a little qiet now so here's a little reading for you all.

Following on the suggestion to disable the igp to quieten the cpu some more I ordered a low end Radeon 5450 HTPC videocard. I've been experimenting with this 'Passive' and silent solution (there was once a time videocards did not need active cooling) to get some new insights.

I have to say I sighed of relief when I ripped it out of the pc after many hours of frustration. First about fixing the !@&?! thing in its slot, secondly about the software that is cr*p to the operation of xx. My clockres was frequently hijacked and then some gremlins launched a truckload of services into operation that were hard to kill. It was a pita to sweep the pc clean from all the unneccesary stuff. Next time i am allways going to perform a custom install with only the driver and that was't even the 'preferred mode of operation' for this setup.
And last but no least about the compressed, hazy and chunky sound that no matter what I did refused to change its character for the better. Now i am listening to the naturalness and musicality that are the great traits of the signature nos1 usb setup (as far as I am concerned of course). Furthermore I allmost got a cardiac arrest from extremely loud pops in a reboot sequence. If these are the infamous switch off pops, start to distrust your videocard as this is shurely related. Note that thare are pops in my usual setup but not as loud by a far margin.
Oh and above sq observations were with the monitor off by xx!

What can we learn from this? Well maybe the igp is not such a bad idea afterall. Its powerconsumption has to be lower that the 5450, that btw gets freakin hot (like musical fedelity A1 hot), doing nothing. You also can't get any better communication between cpu and gpu if such a thing matters when the monitor is turned to sleep. Imagine all those bits travelling on the PCIE bus to the soundcard and sharing their lanes with precious disc IOs. With the IGP all you have to do is make shure the graphics clock is set to the lowest possible level and you're in business.
On the positive side, the graphics flied like never before with the card on place.

Maybe someone else can share his (her?) findings on this mouse and soundcard thing.

Happy listening,

Regards, Coen

Hi Greg,

No tweaks on the vga plug, the powerconnector-ground is connected to the PC and NOS1 powerconn-grounds (the amps are "floating").

I can use the EL95 because my speakers are 103+ dB per Watt (on a meter distance) and favour a high outputimpedance. I took a philips ag9016 as basis; now only a few components are still in use, including the tiny outputs!
In a nutshell: the outputtubes are triode connected, the amp/driver has a complete new psu and I use 3dB of global feedback. Most work has gone into the PSUs.

It sounds fast and gorgeous and is way more versatile than my ultra complex all DHT setup (which is being dismantled). The most amazing thing is that I hardly ever experience a lack of dynamics or limitations on the low and high end.

To get back on the thread: there is very little noise coming from these amps. I have to put my ear into the horns to hear a slight hiss that should be there given the aged tubes and high value carbon resistors. There is less noise that the SS amps I had on the horns (including the gainclone). Inevitably there is a slight hum from the AC heating.

regards, Coen

A small update.

The videocard I had in the drawer is not willing to play video, nevertheless that route gave me one usefull insight.
Since the Atom D525 and i5 share the same GPUnit, they are not clocked at the same frequency. The Atom supports only 400MHz whilst the i5 is standard on 1100 MHz. In the Bios I "underclocked' the i5 Videofrequency to 400 MHz and voila a very nice SQ improvent occurred!

Most of the artifical, "pinched" quality of the sound is gone now and an extra octave of low end seems to have appeared.

I wonder If an external card brings more to the bank. I think I am going to score a "el cheapo" passive 5450...

More about the noise and TVC later.

regards, Coen

Fwiw the Atom (cedar trail) has the same gpu as the 2600. Nevertheless it is an interesting line of thought that I will test tonight.

On the cpu side, I have it still running with EIST on so it is actually clocked at 1.6 Ghz at light loads and turboing on peak demand. Power signature should be minimal with short peaks. I have no means to check cpu powerdraw, but I can imagine the i5 having a bigger powerdifference between low and high cpu (peaking) tahn the atom.

Well the proef is in the pudding as we sayhere, I will report back.

Thanks, Coen

Greg and Juan, thanks for thinking along. I have enough ideas now to target the mouse usb thing.


Well, for one thing the atom has peak power in the order of 10 watts, the i5 probably 50 (ex heavy load on gpu) or even more. This makes the peaks on the i5 a seriously heavier load on the psu. Furthermore the powersupply to the processor is more complex (3x4pin connector extra) with more supply and ground path. Good to get the power to the proc but we would never build an audio component that way. I don't consider this as a better way to do things .

Just to tease you I can reverse the reasoning that I never read anywhere that the Atom is bad for sq....

Number 1) certainly applies. If this is due to something wrong might be the case. Bottom line is that it played music the way I like it but it is too impaired for full XX handling (no gapless playback, slow response to any control, limited in its settings like no 'real time', max sfs 140).

As a sidenote I want to remark that it is the sum of things that I feel needs adressing. Sq wise the new setup does excel in some areas but does not deliver the 'magic'.


At the same settings the peaks occur in the same rythm on the i5 albeit with varying peak height. Maybe something is wrong on my setup afterall? It does not sound the same as the Atom -as expected-, but some settings helped in taking off the edginess. Both going from 'real time' to ' high' and increasing the nos1 driver buffer smooth out and enrich the sound somewhat. Increasing the sfs from 140 to 430 again helps also in gaining naturalness.


I can pass the tvc, since I reinstalled it to adress the slow volume response on the Atom. The i5 is fast enough. I have an old gainclone somewhere that needs a box and powersupply, maybe with the nos it can outperform my tubeamp, maybe. (it is in a box for a reason)
Adressing the full system will take to much time and money, besides I wouldn't know in what other direction to go (the best systems I heard allways used tube amps and horns).


Handling was the first reason, getting on par with the 'reference' settings another. The Atom is plugging a few connectors away from reuse , but I am not finishet yet. I allow the mobo to get some real milage and there is still a lot of stuff that i have not taken care off.


Maybe it is about the Atom board being simpler and less tweaks were necessary to get it to perform. I am playing with more or less the same things but with more options.

This is an excellent forum with good ideas and knowledgable people so I still have hope that it will be sorted out one day!

Regards, Coen

I don't want to hijack my own thread, but I started this one as a topic to be adressed to get SQ on par with my old setup. Since I effectively only changed the mobo and processor (and load on the psu), I expected a little tweaking would improve sound beyond what I was used to.

So far I have been unsuccessfull. The mouse story is one aspect, other areas are experimented with, but the sound refuses to go in the desired direction. Maybe it needs more burn in, but I am not optimistic.

I feel the sound is a little tense and harsh, making listening a less pleasurable experience. Also 'image size' is "small". Small voices, drums, hihats etc. This may very well be related to the power supply, but was no issue on the Atom. The is a lot of detail information jumping around, but this does not add to a captivating musical experience.

Besides the obvious performance limitations of the Atom setup it actually sounded so good that i hardly ever tweaked anything. In fact the new mobo has been layong around my room for more than a month.

If we would only be able to marry the atom sound with the i5 perfromance....

Regards, Coen

Very nice idea, thanks!

Regards, Coen

Hi Stanley,

A difficult question to anwer, if not impossible. I set some budget and powerconsumption constraints in selecting my setup. Also important is wheter you want to use the pc for other purposes.

I think there is no real alternative for the Intel gear. You may get a good price on an i7 Sandy Bridge now since Ivy Bridge is on the horizon. It is general consensus that you should buy the processor supporting the most threads that you are willing/able to afford.

As motherboard features I would advice to have at least a USB 3 capability (native on the latest IB Intel chipset) and (if you do not plan to game) an onboard VGA/DVi interface using the GPU since XX is not demanding on the video side. This is all pretty standard by now.

I personally had a PCI interface on my whishlist to later give the PC another destination than stand-alone music server. I also looked into the 2 Oz copper ones that are advertised to have lower supply impedance (generally something desirable).

Oh, imho there is no way around Win7-x64 Ultimate that supports all desired XX traits out of the box.

When all setup you'll be in tweakers heaven . You can tune the motherboard interfaces, the bios, the OS and XX; no more boring nights!!!

May the force be with you,

regards, Coen

You're welcome boleary!

Also note that there is different flavours of sata on the motherboard. Some come directly from the chipset and others are tapped off the pci-e bus (like the usb3.0 above). I have my os on the chipset sata and the music on the pci-e to sata controller. Even the sata port that is used may make a difference. If you have some spare time this kind of tweaking is a nice learning experience an may yield in some free sq improvement.

Regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

This is good news. I hope a satisfying sultion will be possible.

Does it matter that usb3 is still implemented as a PCIe extention?

Regards, Coen

Thanks Alain,

I have a whole box with mouses, keybords and the like. The more practical (wireless) and advanced stuff is allways usb. Usb seems to be the preferred mouse connection since 2001  .

Regards, Coen

This weekend I did a little speedtest.

Since i have an unlocked processor, I switched of EIST and underclocked the processor to 2.5GHz (coming from 3.3 with 3.7 turbo). This seriously impaired the handling of XX. Everything takes much more time, for a split second I even had the idea that te atom was back .

This confirms my idea that pure core horsepower remains important. I am convinced that the system could even be faster with a cpu that supports more threads, but that comes at a price premium that you have to be willing to pay.

Happy listening to ya all,

Regards, Coen

Just to answer my own question: The best mouse is no mouse.

Just try it.

I've noticed that SQ of the NOS1-USB is compromised by any other USB port that is activated. This may be a mouse, memorystick or whatever USB device. So I like to keep my USB clean, but now a "challenge" rises: how to connect the mouse on a modern motherboard?
Like many new motherboards, my new one only has one PS/2 connector that either supports a mouse or a keyboard. Nope, the splitter does not work (only on some older laptops).

In order to be able to unplug the mouse when listening to music, the keyboard is occupying this port (XX control is via keyboard hotkeys). This works but is inconvenient.

In an attempt to adress this inconvenience whilst not using USB, I reverted to the good 'ole serial mouse on the COM port. The PS/2 and COM controllers are on the same chip and everything worked right away (huray for W7!).
Unfortunately no surprises here: everything seems to matter, so does the serial mouse. It leaves a signature on the sound that is noticable (by me) yet different from the usb mouse.

Maybe someone has found a covenient and harmless solution for controlling the pc with a mouse other than buying a new mobo.
(registry tweaks? more hotkeys?)

Please let me know,

regards, Coen