IPMI & Integrated Graphics

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Jon Massey

Active Member
Nov 11, 2015
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Morning all, got a bit of a sticky problem with some supermicro boards and graphics going on.

We've got a X11SSZ-QF and a C7Z97-MF which are using in some animal imaging systems we're developing. When these systems were initially built out (including #1 which was based around a Asus board and which we have relatively easy physical access to), they included GTX 970s as we were using CUDA for some image processing. As it happens, we had some thread safety issues with a library we are using's CUDA methods so we've reverted to just doing it multithreaded on the CPU (i7-4790K, i7-6700K respectively) which gives adequate performance and a lot lower power/thermal requirements.

Since removing the discrete GPU from the boxes and re-enabling the integrated intel GPU in the BIOS I've now got the problem that our OpenGL-requiring software is not showing anything on the display (via teamviewer or iKVM) as the only "connected" display is the ASpeed BMC which doesn't support OpenGL. This makes debugging issues very hard as we cannot view what the 3D camera sees "live" on the remote box but instead have to make a recording, copy it to a local machine and run it there.

Is there a way to force usage of the Intel graphics adapter in the teamviewer session (or the iKVM session for that matter)? Only the "generic display" connected to the Aspeed BMC is showing in the Win7 display properties.

edit: just tried changing the default adapter in the bios to IGFX which broke iKVM access and made the teamviewer display a horrible pixellated unreadable mess. Thank god for the text console in IPMIview for the ability to change it back!
 
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pricklypunter

Well-Known Member
Nov 10, 2015
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I have never tried anything like this, but is it possible to pass through the onboard intel HD530 directly to the VM, or even another VM and view from there over a console?
 

Jon Massey

Active Member
Nov 11, 2015
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I hadn't thought about that. I suppose we could run esxi or another free hypervisor on there, do GPU passthru (assuming cpu support etc.) and just connect to the VCenter console thingy (it's been a good few years since I've used vmware!). Hopefully there won't be any problems with USB passthru and the like. I'm unlikely to be able to do such a major change with the existing units but will certainly bear it in mind for the future ones!
 

Jon Massey

Active Member
Nov 11, 2015
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That would indeed have low power and heat requirements but it vastly simplifies our buildout to have no PCIE graphics cards in. It'd be great if by some sort of configuration change we could use the Intel integrated GPU
 

trumee

Member
Jan 31, 2016
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I am also interested in this. Funny thing is the iGFX is not selected in the BIOS as the primary display, it is not even exposed to the system i.e. lspci doesnt list this VGA device. However, as soon iGFX is selected as the primary display, iKVM video output doesnt work.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
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I don't exactly remember but I had left it with the defaults to use the aspeed graphics and did not change it.

After pass through to a windows 10 VM, rather display was messed up till I installed the display driver from Intel and changed the display property in the VM to use one monitor with the passed-through igpu.
 

trumee

Member
Jan 31, 2016
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I don't exactly remember but I had left it with the defaults to use the aspeed graphics and did not change it.

After pass through to a windows 10 VM, rather display was messed up till I installed the display driver from Intel and changed the display property in the VM to use one monitor with the passed-through igpu.
I am curious what is special about ESXI that it can see the iGFX when linux cant.
 

trumee

Member
Jan 31, 2016
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Drivers maybe?
lspci is not even showing the device, so drivers dont even come into the picture. This blog also mentions of it not being available,
"The integrated GPU is not initialized by default. You need to either install an external graphics card or use IPMI to enter the BIOS and change Advanced → Chipset Configuration → Graphics Configuration → Primary Display to “IGFX”."