Another cautionary tale!!
Had my second Faux Pau in 2 years of tinkering with Audio PCs and this one the worst....what a twat!!
Think it all began with my hurry to get the PPA clock mod up and running which was a strip down and rebuild of the board so as to get at the board for the mod.
During the hurried assembly I stuck the PCI riser for the PPA USB Card out of position on the long PCI slot, everything powered up OK but when I connected the USB cable from the Meitner DAC the PPA USB card started smoking :-((
I had no idea at first what had happened until I noticed the PCI riser out of position, needless to say the PPA USB card was cooked.
Connected the USB cable from the Meitner to the board USB and got music....PHEWW!
After a few days installed the SOTM USB out PCI card I had lying around and had that running good the past few days.
Fast forward to yesterday and after charging up the Anker battery which ran the SOTM card through the 12v in this past week the Meitner would not run anymore off USB.
Opened it up today and there is a surface mount component fried on the digital Input board, guess it held in well for about 10 days before giving up the ghost.
Turns out the Mobo USB does not want to work anymore either with USB audio out, even tried installing the Young DAC again but I get a crash when trying to start playback from both MQN and JPlay with 2 different OS devices so looks like the board also needs to be replaced.
Looks like I am going to be without PC based audio now for about 2 to 3 weeks while I source new components.
Shame as the JCat was due for delivery next week so it will have to go on hold for a while.
Can be a real PITA sometimes this hobby but looking forward to getting back up and running again as I had some seriously sweet sounds before everything packed in.
Expensive lessons but I hope a wake up for anyone diving under the hood these days with all the mods on the go!
Cheers, Pearse.