GPU with HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen 10 Plus?

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axavio

Member
Sep 25, 2020
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GPUs don't seem to be mentioned in the Gen 10 Plus Ultimate Customization Guide or anywhere else on the interwebs. Maybe the usual option is go with a CPU with an iGPU?

In any case, I thought I would try out a dedicated GPU. HPE does offer a branded version of a Radeon WX 2100, but it is old, slow, and very hard to find. I picked up a Radeon Pro W6400 which was best-performing modern GPU I could see at 50W or under to stay within the power budget and dimensional limitations. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Surprise! It didn't work! Using the latest firmware, I get "Uncorrectable PCI Express Error Detected. Slot 1 (Segment 0x0, Bus 0x9, Device 0x0, Function 0x0). Uncorrectable Error Status: 0x100000" in ILO and in the console:

kernel:[ 31.913091] Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 24 on CPU 0.
kernel:[ 31.913093] Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?
kernel:[ 31.913094] Dazed and confused, but trying to continue


Further searching indicated that at least one person had fixed this by disabling C-states in the BIOS. I don't know if that's possible on this server, so I switched to "static high performance" power regulation. Same result, same errors.

Does anyone have any suggestions or is this just a quixotic endeavor on unsupported hardware in a locked-down system?
 

rafale77

Member
Sep 28, 2020
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The W6400 / NAVI24 card is a bit of a unique product which very existence makes no sense because there is no use case for it. Are you completely sold on going AMD? Or can you go nVidia?
The Navi 24 cards are on a 4xPCIe4 bus and initial testing showed that its performance significantly decreased (~20%) when going with a PCIe3 bus. It is a 3D focused card designed to work on machines with a iGPU because it is the only modern GPU I know with no video encoder/decoder. It was designed to be paired with an AMD APU in laptops, therefore a very narrow and specific use case which doesn’t apply in a workstation or even desktop card.
Because of these an nVidia T600/T1000 would be a more sensible choice. They are much better supported and avoids getting into that 4xPCIe4 nonsense.
The best Radeon Pro card for your use case would be the 7 year old WX4100…
 
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axavio

Member
Sep 25, 2020
32
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Thanks @RolloZ170 and @rafale77!

It certainly does look I picked the wrong card. I haven't seen any success stories with the T600/T1000, but it certainly looks like a possibility. I had hoped that because the official HPE card was AMD that the W6400 might work, but didn't take into account the oddity of this particular card.