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616077
Use a PCI graphics card on Poweredge T620
Purchased Poweredge T620, with a NVIDIA Tesla C2075 CUDA card in for use as a high end workstation and CUDA machine.
Due to the programs I must run I have set the machine up dual booting Windows 7 and Linux (this in itself took some doing).
The graphics are currently being served by the onboard Matrox G200.
I have managed, on both systems to install the CUDA graphics card, for use in programming. However I decided to attempt to use another graphics card (NVIDIA Geforce GT610) as on Linux, installing the NVIDIA drivers stops me being able to access my monitors full screen resolution (a problem that I think will be more easily solved if graphics are being handled by an NVIDIA chipset on an external card). Additionally the Matrox G200 is not going to be sufficient for some of the programs I am going to be required to run in Windows.
On installing the GT610, no output was displayed (both before and after driver installation), I discovered this is also the case if I plug a monitor into the CUDA card. It seems there is some BIOS/iDRAC setting preventing output through any additional PCI graphics card.
I have tried disabling the onboard graphics controller in the BIOS, however this merely left me with no display at all, then requiring me to reset the BIOS via the jumper, a process I would prefer not to have to repeat. I also speculatively, adjusted the iDRAC network setting "Enable NIC" to "Disabled" but with no luck (though I have not tried disabling the onboard graphics via the BIOS since this change). Windows sees all graphics cards as installed and working, however does not see any displays connected to the,
If anyone has any ideas as to which settings need to be changed to enable output from PCI graphics cards, that would be amazing!
Thanks
turuncu
5 Posts
0
October 7th, 2015 06:00
Hi,
I am trying to use Nvidia K5200 card in Dell T620 server. I installed Nvidia driver but i could not get anything from display. The onboard one is working. Do you have any additional information after this post. You are mentioning about xorg.conf that you could get output. If you don't mind could you share any information with me regarding the problem.
Regards,
--ufuk
Mackuly
4 Posts
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October 7th, 2015 06:00
I had to go into the bios and disable the onboard video adapter. This is what I had to do with my nvidea card to get dual monitors with a fedora OS on a t620. It should then boot to the card. Unfortunately after disabling the onboard I am no longer able to get to the bios. If I ever have to get into bios I have to open the box and reset the jumper. But I do have dual monitors on my t620. Good luck
turuncu
5 Posts
0
October 7th, 2015 10:00
In my case, i have only one monitor Dell UP2414Q and i could not generate correct xorg.conf and xrand command gives no output "can't display" but i could see the card and monitor using nvidia-config file. I also tried to disable onboard graphics card but no luck. So, if you don't mind could you share your xorg.conf file with me. So, there could be a problem in mine. By the way,i could see the card with lspci.
Anyway, thanks for your help,
Regards,
> lspci | grep -i nvidia
42:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK110GL [Quadro K5200] (rev a1)
42:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK110 HDMI Audio (rev a1)
> nvidia-xconfig --query-gpu-info
Number of GPUs: 1
GPU #0:
Name : Quadro K5200
UUID : GPU-ad026db3-a748-2439-2844-4310e1d6e865
PCI BusID : PCI:66:0:0
Number of Display Devices: 1
Display Device 0 (talk):
EDID Name : DELL UP2414Q
Minimum HorizSync : 31.000 kHz
Maximum HorizSync : 140.000 kHz
Minimum VertRefresh : 29 Hz
Maximum VertRefresh : 75 Hz
Maximum PixelClock : 300.000 MHz
Maximum Width : 3840 pixels
Maximum Height : 2160 pixels
Preferred Width : 3840 pixels
Preferred Height : 2160 pixels
Preferred VertRefresh : 30 Hz
Physical Width : 530 mm
Physical Height : 300 mm
rexdorchester
1 Message
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July 15th, 2017 12:00
By disabling the onboard video, in many cases where the graphics card is being operated by the OS, you simply are permanently locking yourself from getting into the bios. Because in most cases a server will not support video display over anything other than the built in KVM or something else. But it's not really likely you'll be able to choose, however in some setups you can change the IRQ numbers and I've been experimenting with that to change the output of bios with no success either.
skylarking
548 Posts
0
July 16th, 2017 02:00
On my T610, by plugging in a PCIe video card, modded so that it fits the x8 PCIe slot, i then get access to the embedded video controller option within BIOS where i can set it to disabled. From that point on, the embedded Matrox video is disabled and all video is handled by the PCIe video card. There are no issues with seeing the BIOS boot sequence via the new PCIe video card :emotion-1:
IIUC, T620 operates in the same way.
About the only issue one should see on the T610/T620 is that you loose some IDRAC features (like boot logging, etc) and that the fans go 75% full speed due to a (presumably not recognised) 75W PCIe card being plugged in.
So, unless Dell has made some changes to T620 System Firmware, then i don't see why the boot sequence can't be seen vis PCIe video or accessing the firmware should be an issue.
Maybe such an issue has more to do with T620 System Boot Mode (BIOS/UEFI) being used in combination with the video card BIOS capability (BIOS when UEFI needed) or UEFI keys or something similar.
Being classic BIOS user, i can say where the issue may lie.
HGB1
1 Message
0
July 25th, 2022 06:00
What an amazing design decision - casting hardware decisions in concrete when they should be enforced through the warranty, not the bios. Dell allows their servers to have GPUs but not display the graphics. I understand that Dell doesn't want its customers to install hardware in their systems. That is a source of instability and uncertainty. That's a warranty issue. Many of these computers live long after the warranty runs out, and Dell won't be responsible for maintaining them.