Excellent idea. Here's a little info to get the ball rolling:-

My BM5 was supplied with a Western Digital WD10EURX 1TB hard disk which I have successfully replaced with the equivalent 2TB model (WD20EURX). I have packed the original drive away in a safe place and also saved a disk image on my NAS, both as an aid to any future recovery should the drive fail. I would suggest all owners should consider at least one of these options. I used clonezilla to clone the drives as it is much faster than a block by block copy of the entire disk as it understands the file systems and therefore does not need to copy unused space (this speed advantage would be less significant if your existing drive was almost full, but I cloned my disk before I copied my music onto the BM5).

I have also considered acquiring a replacement motherboard - my initial research indicated the following:-

• The motherboards is a VIA EPIA EX fitted with a 2GHz VIA C7 processor but retail versions of this motherboard came only in 1GZ and 1.5GHz guises so I assume the 2GHz version was built to order for B&O.
• The processor is not socketed but rather soldered (BGA), so a change would not be straightforward although BGA chips can be changed with the right equipment and there are plenty of companies who can provide this service.
• The serial number is stored in the BIOS and on the Hard Drive. Cloning the hard drive properly will copy the serial number to the new disk so this is not an issue but the serial number in the BIOS might be.
• There is a B&O software tool that copies the serial number from the hard drive into the BIOS when replacing the motherboard but this is obviously only available to B&O service technicians.
• A previous forum post suggested that the VIA BIOS software tool could be used to save the B&O specific BIOS but not the serial number data which is stored in a special protected area of the BIOS.
• It was my intention to check whether the BIOS is socketed, and if so whether I could take a copy of the full BIOS, including the serial number data, using my EPROM programmer, but I haven't got around to doing so yet.

Martin

Hi,

here are two software solutions that require no separate hardware.


BeoSound 5 and AirPlay:
LINK TO THREAD

BeoSound 5 and Spotify Connect:
LINK TO THREAD (just scroll down a bit to read the instruction how to install)

A while ago Spotify announced that they are going to drop the support for Win XP at some point. So maybe this solution might not work in future and we will have to wait (or hope) until someone successfully reverse engineered the Connect protocol and programmed a little application like the shairport solution above.  

BR,
BeoMotion. 

Enable Beosound 5 MLGW / Masterlink Gateway compatibility mode to pass Light & Control signals through Masterlink:

Access to ‘Service Menu’:

Access to the ‘Service Menu’ can be obtained in 2 ways,

either from BeoSound 5* screen or from BeoMaster 5** (TV screen).

Please use the following procedure for a smooth setup:

* BeoSound 5, ‘Service Menu’ access (when no TV is connected):

- Move the navigator arm to MODE

Normal 0 false false false false EN-US JA X-NONE

and use the wheel to highlight SETTINGS.

- On BeoSound 5 keyboard,

press: > < > < GO

to activate ‘Service Settings’

(Service Settings appears in left side of the screen,

Normal 0 false false false false EN-US JA X-NONE

containing new sub menus).

- Move the navigator arm to MAINTENANCE

and use the wheel to highlight SERVICE MENU

and press GO.

Now all active sources related to BeoSound 5

or BeoMaster 5 shuts down,

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE

and the ‘Service Menu’ appears on the screen

Service Menu:

When setting up BeoMaster 5 a USB PC keyboard and mouse must be used.

Select/Open the folder MLGW

Enable commands to MLGW (Master Link Gate Way):

- Will enable reroute of all LIGHT and CONTROL commands from remote to MLGW.

- It is recommended only to have one product in a room with this setting to enabled

- Three or more products in a room can cause fail on ML

Enable status to MLGW (Master Link Gate Way)

- Shall only be enabled if status to a control panels is needed

Both settings are default disabled

This is straight from the FAQ section on the B&O website but I thought it worth including here as it took me a little while to figure this out when spotify first became available with audio master set to NO.

How do operate BeoSound 5 in a system with another audio system using Beo4?

When BeoSound 5 is set up in a system with another audio system (that is when AUDIO MASTER is set to NO on BeoSound 5), you can activate following sources using your Beo4 remote control:

• N.Music
• Spotify (provided that you have an account)
• A.AUX

How to active a source with Beo4 ...

Source	Beo4, type 162x (with GO button)	Beo4, type 171x (with navigation button)
N.Music	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press GO.	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press the centre button.
Spotify	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press GO. Press 1.	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press the centre button. Press 1. Press Play.
A.AUX	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press GO. Press 2.	Press LIST until N.MUSIC is shown in the Beo4 display. Press the centre button. Press 2. Press Play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also worth mentioning is that the CD ripper is just a USB CDROM drive in a fancy case, and as such pretty much any USB CDROM / CDRW / DVD etc drive plugged into the BM5 will be detected as a CD ripper and work in exactly the same way as the official B&O unit. I just bought a really cheap (<15GBP) slot loading drive which sits on top of my BM5 and then turned on the ripping functionality in the BS5 menus.

Admittedly I don't tend to use it much, as I prefer to rip my music on another machine in the format I want, but I've always felt the CD ripper somewhat spoils the aesthetics of the BS5 so having this hidden away with the BM5 is a better solution to me.

Martin.

riverstyx wrote:

pretty much any USB CDROM / CDRW / DVD etc drive plugged into the BM5 will be detected as a CD ripper and work in exactly the same way as the official B&O unit.

Unfortunately this is only the half truth. 
As you have mentioned almost every USB CD/DVD drive will work for ripping CDs.
What seams not to work with devices other than the original B&O one is the possibility to use it like a normal CD player.
At some point there was a software update that introduced this function.
Only with the ripping device you are able to see and use this source from menu.
It seams that the software is checking the VID/PID of the connected drive.

The ripping device shows this values:
USB 2.0-Hub: VID_05e3 PID_0608 REV_3298
USB mass storage: VID_13FD PID_0940 REV_0101  

As you can see the VID it is not the B&O one. Maybe there are "normal" drives out there with the same VID/PID that will work for both ripping and playing CDs. Worst case would be if it is checking the hub IDs, too.

riverstyx wrote:

but I've always felt the CD ripper somewhat spoils the aesthetics of the BS5

totally agree

BR,
BeoMotion. 

BeoMotion wrote:

Unfortunately this is only the half truth. 
As you have mentioned almost every USB CD/DVD drive will work for ripping CDs.
What seams not to work with devices other than the original B&O one is the possibility to use it like a normal CD player.

Interesting, I did not know this. A quick google seems to indicate there are indeed standard drives and hubs around with the same VID/PID so it may be possible to obtain the correct drive and gain the CD playback functionality too, but I don't use mine for playing CDs as I use either my BS9000 or the DVD drive of the BV7-40mk3 for that as both are in the same room as my BS5.

Martin.

If anybody stumples upon a cheap CD drive that shares the same VID/PID, then please post it here :)