ASRock Rack PAUL IPMI Card

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serverdestroyers

New Member
Jun 6, 2020
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Only site I seen sell these are in AU/NZ. Hoping to hit the US soon unless someone has some links where to buy in the states
 

slayernine

New Member
Feb 16, 2021
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Hi, I'm really interested in this product. Looks perfect for adding IPMI to some workstations. Does anyone know what the model number is? Not finding anything just searching for "Asrock PAUL".
 

ramblinreck47

Active Member
Aug 3, 2019
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Hi, I'm really interested in this product. Looks perfect for adding IPMI to some workstations. Does anyone know what the model number is? Not finding anything just searching for "Asrock PAUL".
Its model number right now is just "PAUL". That's it. I

t's only being sold in Australia at the moment (as far as I can tell). I think believe it will probably be several more months before it makes its way to the US. Will probably be around $125-$150 USD (based on its price in Australia).
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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@Waterkippie
none of the few / many remote management solutions i have had my hands on had the ability to display the picture created on a different dedicated Workstation Graphics card.
And i doubt that will change unless the GPU manufacturers and BMC / remote management Devs get together and create a specification for the BMC to read directly from the workstation GPU.

I don't know of such standards, i have not looked into such standards, i doubt the amount of people interested in it is high enough to warrant the development of such.

Comparable standards are for example the interfaces where the BMC can serve its management functions on other system NICs other then dedicated port.
For example, RMII or NCSI in the of an Supermicro X11SPi with an AST2500.
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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I see one potential catch here that sticks out: Standby power is apparently provided by the USB bus, not PCIe. Systems that don't have standby USB power probably won't be able to remotely power on with this thing.
 

slayernine

New Member
Feb 16, 2021
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Its model number right now is just "PAUL". That's it. I

t's only being sold in Australia at the moment (as far as I can tell). I think believe it will probably be several more months before it makes its way to the US. Will probably be around $125-$150 USD (based on its price in Australia).
Thanks for the info. Excited to eventually get my hands on one of these I'd like to post a video on youtube. Hopefully they arrive in NA sometime this year.
 

slayernine

New Member
Feb 16, 2021
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I see one potential catch here that sticks out: Standby power is apparently provided by the USB bus, not PCIe. Systems that don't have standby USB power probably won't be able to remotely power on with this thing.
Twice this year my remote workstation needed to be reset due to Windows 10 locking up, I think under that scenario this would do the job. It's a long drive into the office to push a button. I believe my motherboard does support standby power but that is definitely a good thing to know.
 

lukev

New Member
Feb 17, 2021
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I just received one of these cards here in Australia. Apparently there is still no documentation or even boxes for the units, it comes wrapped in black foam.
It currently only comes with a low profile pci bracket and no cables.

I didn't get any quick start guide or documentation with it. So far I've plugged the usb into the motherboard, so I'm able to use the KVM side of things.

I'm not able to power on/off the machine though.

Hopefully I hear back from Asrock soon and see what else I can achieve with this card.
 

Mithril

Active Member
Sep 13, 2019
354
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@Waterkippie
none of the few / many remote management solutions i have had my hands on had the ability to display the picture created on a different dedicated Workstation Graphics card.
And i doubt that will change unless the GPU manufacturers and BMC / remote management Devs get together and create a specification for the BMC to read directly from the workstation GPU.

I don't know of such standards, i have not looked into such standards, i doubt the amount of people interested in it is high enough to warrant the development of such.

Comparable standards are for example the interfaces where the BMC can serve its management functions on other system NICs other then dedicated port.
For example, RMII or NCSI in the of an Supermicro X11SPi with an AST2500.

So, I'm not sure how Windows 10 does it's "display cloning" but it *can* clone the display to another card, and it doesn't seem to have a large impact on either GPU. I don't know how much of that is Window's own display manager and how much is at hardware level, but for getting into the "bios" you'd need motherboard support at minimum. Or, an option to have a capture device (usb?).
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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Windows 7 notably switched to rendering to a buffer in VRAM, so if 10 still does that, it has to copy the framebuffer from one GPU to the other. That said...

or getting into the "bios
Probably not a problem. Set the system firmware to use the IPMI card as the primary display adapter. Mild disadvantage: the local console may be unable to access the system firmware, show boot messages, etc. But once the OS takes over, that setting is irrelevant and you can use whatever combination of display adapters the OS supports.
 

ullbeking

Active Member
Jul 28, 2017
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London
This is exactly the kind of thing I want whenever I see a workstation board that is near perfect but has no BMC. I wonder if the OpenBMC project thinks that a libre implementation of an IPMI BMC/IPMI interface is possible. Gonna ask them now.
 

Donatas

New Member
Jan 5, 2022
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Thanks for details and all the pictures!
Did you ever figure the details on HARD RESET switching and POWER ON/OFF ?
It's been officially released and in another forum a PAUL fan mentions of a new firmware needed to control HARD RESET switching and POWER ON/OFF. " the Firmware needs to be updated to atleast 1.01.5. "
Maybe you have the latest PAUL fimrware?

I'm quite happy with the ASROCK PAUL card, remote "desktop" control working, mouse & keyboard fine, virtual CD fine, but I'm missing the reset and power on/off functionality :(
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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Isn't there an extra cable-piece for the front-panel header for power and reset ?
The posted picture only shows one USB2.0 connection.