T340 Graphic Card Update

Hello @VizenPankaj,

The PowerEdge T340 officially supports only the Matrox G200eR2 graphics card with 16 MB capacity with the following video resolutions options: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864 and 1280x1024

Source: PowerEdge T340 Technical Specifications

The PowerEdge T340 with any other GPU is not supported. So if you need help with an unsupported configuration, you can wait for some other community member user who tried this configuration and can offer you some highlights about it.

Regards.

Thanks @DiegoLopez for response...

waiting for reply from other members who might have faced this issue..

Add me to the IPL.

Hi DJinSanDiego,

How may we assist you? Would there be a specific issue that we can look into for you?

Hello,

There is no support for GPUs in the T340 platform. You may be able to get a low power card to work, but it may create problems using the iDRAC. Unsuppored hardware can also create problems with other systems. I have seen add-in USB PCI cards and GPUs cause system to fail to POST.

If the higher resolution display is a major concern, I would recommend looking at the Precision series. These workstations offer many of the benefits of servers, like Xeon processors and ECC memory, but also support GPUs.

I'd like to have a high display resolution such as a 2560 x 1440 and using an HDMI monitor.

Can the T340 support a graphics adapter capable of that as a secondary display?

My immediate problem was fixed with the latest driver. Much better.

It's a bit confusing when the term GPU is being used. I understand for my specific system (PE T340) there is not any support on the main board for the uP and the chipset to support the video adapter's on board graphics engine.

I don't need/want a high speed graphics adapter that would support gaming -- I'm not needing higher level FPS. A 60 Hz refresh rate at whatever frame rate that would support connecting to an HDMI monitor would be great.

When it was mentioned there have been instances of a POST failure with an add-in PCI USB card, (1) what level of USB and who made the card? (2) Was the POST failing to complete, i.e. the box was never able to get to the point of loading the OS?

BTW, I appreciate the suggestion of looking at a Precision series computer, however, I have a PowerEdge T340. It's primarily being used for on premise backups. But if I could also do some NLE video editing of HD material, that would be great. The higher resolution monitor would be used for doing that.

In the case of the USB, the system hung at a black screen. It's been quite a while, so I can't remember much more than that.

At any rate - I am glad to hear that you're seeing some better performance with a driver update. As for the GPU/video card, it's not that there's an assumption of looking to game or even perform GPU compute tasks, it's that when the systems went through hardware validation, no video cards were tested to confirm they work, or consistently work.  There's a chance that any GPU video card installed would act similarly. Now that having been said, I have heard anecdotally that the 14th generation servers have better compatibility with unvalidated devices. If you wanted to proceed, you might try PCI slots 1 or 2. I say that because they're x8 slots, and the others are less.

Other servers do support Nvidia cards, so you might try a lower power NVS card. That's not a recommendation, just something I think may have the best chance to work, and Nvidia's pages show those cards are able to support 4k. The problem I did see is that it looks like NVS are all DisplayPort out. That being said, you should be able to use a conversion cable, provided the card and server cooperate. 

Many thanks for the reply and suggestions.

I am aware of various adapters. To that end I thought I would try something new for me -- pushing video through a USB 3.0 port and using an adapter to then connect to an HDMI monitor.

If that does not work then I will look further at an add-in adapter.

TTFN

P.S. I can appreciate the position taken by Dell regarding testing/validating OEM equipment. Just the shear numbers of devices available to the consumer is staggering. In no way should any one expect Dell to acquire and test these devices let alone lend some kind of inference the thing is ready for prime time, i.e. run in a server in a data center supporting businesses and production IT operations -- it ain't goin' happen.

OTOH, it is my box and I can do some testing. Which I will be doing. (Do you have a rig I can get cheap to use as a test system?)

For what it's worth,  I've been running the ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 1GB DDR3 PCIE x 1 Low Profile Graphic Card in my T340 since 2019 with zero issues.   It has DVI, HDMI, VGA.

What were the steps associated with getting this to work. I have a nvidia GeForce gt 710 I’m trying to use instead of the existing vga port. I can’t get it to do anything 

What steps did you take to get the added graphics card to work? I have a nvidia GeForce gt 710 with a power edge t340.

I have been using a P2000 to power 4 displays… 2x 1080 and 2x 4k monitors with an additional 2x 1080 monitors powered by a Dell USB 3.0 docking station! Yes… I run 6 monitors off of this beast! I tried a couple other graphics cards but I couldn’t get the fans to stay quiet enough for the system to be usable in the same room with me! With the P2000 it’s near silent! 

Hello. I had set up gt710 too and fixed this problem recently.

Power the system and hit the F2 key to enter the System BIOS Settings.

In the [Integrated Devices] menu, you can find the list [Embedded Video Controller] and set it as 'Disabled'.

Matrox video card would not work afterward but you can use descrete gpu.

This might be helpful for you I guess.

Thank you for your reply this could help other users to solve their problems.

Regards Martin