The Supermicro H11SSL-I Rev. 2 issues thread

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freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
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I would like to summarize the issues I face when using the Supermicro H11SSL-I motherboard for my workstation build,
so that others know what they might run into, when building a workstation with the same motherboard.

I am aware that according to Supermicro the H11SSL boards are not meant for workstation builds and are not supported for this scenario,
nethertheless due to the lack of other boards from Supermicro, I tried my luck.

1. Startup time to bios takes very long
When you power up the board, it takes very long till the bios screen is shown.
About 30s to 1 min, so don't switch the board off and wait a little bit longer to see if it boots or not.
During that time it might not show any sign of life - USB ports not powered, GPU fan off, etc.
This might also be because I have fully populated all ram slots, but as it is my first server class board, I am not sure, why it takes so long.

2. Only onboard GPUs supported
According to another forum member Supermicro said that only the internal GPU of the BMC is supported and they have not tested any other configurations.
It took me quite some time to figure out how to disable the integrated GPU and use my AMD Radeon WX7100.
Basically the internal GPU has to be enabled (don't disable it via the jumper on the board),
then install your GPU. Enter the BIOS and set the primary GPU to your external.
Make sure that you get video output through your addin GPU. Sometimes I had to unplug the VGA connector on the board, so that the external GPU showed some output.
After that you can disable the internal GPU on the BMC via the switch on the board.

3. iKVM can not be disabled
I have searched through the documentation and tried to look for an option to disable the internal iKVM, but die not find any.
The iKVM is causing loads of issues with the addin GPU as such it partly overwrites the screen during boot and you can't see what the OS is doing during boot.
At that time it shows a fullscreen Supermicro logo. Some parts of the screen are updated, like the small round circle when Windows is loading,
the rest of the Screen is filled with the Supermicro logo.

4. BMC is controlling FANs
If you want to disable the BMC completely, you should be aware that this also disables the fan control, which is done by the BMC,
resulting in the fans running at full speed all the time.

5. VGA monitor required for setup
Setting up a system with an external GPU requires to have a monitor with VGA, just be aware that you got one. You will need it for the initial setup,
as the addin GPU is not working during that time.

6. Windows 10 not supported
According to the Supermicro Website, Windows 10 is not supported on this board. I tried the install,
but ended up with loads of yellow exclamation marks in the device manager.
I was also not able to install the chipset drivers from the driver CD. The AMD SP3 drivers got stuck during install.
In addition the AMD Radeon WX7100 was not present in Windows, although I had a picture from it.
As a result the AMD drivers reported that there is no AMD GPU available to install drivers for.
Maybe an issue with the integrated iKVM? Unfortunately I can not disable it to do further troubleshooting.

7. System can't shutdown
Microsoft Windows nor Linux (Fedora Silverblue 31, 32, CentOS 8.1, Manjaro Linux) can shut the system down.
The screen goes off, then it takes about 1-2 min and the system reboots.

8. Fans constantly revving up and down
When first installed my 3 pin Noctua case fans were constantly revving up and down. This is due to the BMC thinking that the low RPM of the fans is a fan failure.
Solution: Use the IPMI tool from Supermicro to set the minimum fan speed to sth. like 150 or 200 RPMs. Fan speed might vary for different fans.
 
Last edited:

chilipepperz

Active Member
Mar 17, 2016
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It sounds like you're trying to make a workstation from a server board.
  1. Normal on server boards.
  2. Every server board does this. They'll work with headless GPUs that don't have VGA out like Tesla cards.
  3. Usually iKVM is there to manage the server. GPUs are providing services other than primary server GUI after boot.
  4. That is what should happen. You can set fan speeds through the BMC but the BMC is monitoring temps and adjusting fan speed automatically or set to full speed if you want max performance.
  5. This is related to 3
  6. It is a server board, Windows 10 is a consumer OS so that is why it isn't validated and supported
  7. That one is odd.
  8. Again, if the BMC is sensing too slow of fans, it is going to speed them up. Best to use 4-pin these days as well.
I'm thinking #7 might be a real issue but all of the others are what you'd expect working with server boards. It isn't just Supermicro that does this either.

SM makes some workstation boards with server CPUs that support GPUs just for these use-cases.
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
617
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in regards to 8, that reving up and down is due to the fans reving to slow and tripping a threshold where the BMC assumes them faulty and revs them up to check them.

Lower Fan Speed warning, something like that should be printed to the Health Log.
The way to get rid of it is to set new and especially lower thresholds via the cli tool: ipmitool
There are some tutorials out there on this.

7 is weird, id expect that to be due missing drivers in windows, or a windows bug, had other shutdown restart issues happen when network booting.


6: Be aware that the chipset is integrated into the CPU, hence there is nothing else with brains on the board other then the BMC and a CPLD for what ever.
SO, you driver issues have less to do with the board and more with windows and the AMD EPYC CPU and Platform.

All the other stuff is indeed kinda normal on such a board, though i think that the GPU should be less bitchy then you describe, at least from my experience.
Your card might be faulty with the described symptoms, VEGA which i think is underlying the WX7100, is known to produce a ERROR 43*? had to deactivated because it reported errors, message in device manager. In that state, it will output picture, just no 3D acceleration and the Driver won't find it.
I don't know a fix for that jet, if you can, RMA the card if that is the case.
Some suspect a PCIe issue, maybe setting the generation manually to 3.0 and or lower helps.
I myself assume some other hardware issue with a minor rail and heavy degradation of the imc.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
22
2
1
Your card might be faulty with the described symptoms, VEGA which i think is underlying the WX7100, is known to produce a ERROR 43*? had to deactivated because it reported errors, message in device manager. In that state, it will output picture, just no 3D acceleration and the Driver won't find it.
I don't know a fix for that jet, if you can, RMA the card if that is the case.
Some suspect a PCIe issue, maybe setting the generation manually to 3.0 and or lower helps.
I myself assume some other hardware issue with a minor rail and heavy degradation of the imc.
I had the card in 2 other systems and had zero issues and also works in them, when I switch it back. Both Windows and Linux. My guess is that it has sth. to do with the board/bios.

7 is weird, id expect that to be due missing drivers in windows, or a windows bug, had other shutdown restart issues happen when network booting.
The problem is not only Windows related, but occurs with Linux as well.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
22
2
1
It sounds like you're trying to make a workstation from a server board.
  1. Normal on server boards.
  2. Every server board does this. They'll work with headless GPUs that don't have VGA out like Tesla cards.
  3. Usually iKVM is there to manage the server. GPUs are providing services other than primary server GUI after boot.
  4. That is what should happen. You can set fan speeds through the BMC but the BMC is monitoring temps and adjusting fan speed automatically or set to full speed if you want max performance.
  5. This is related to 3
  6. It is a server board, Windows 10 is a consumer OS so that is why it isn't validated and supported
  7. That one is odd.
  8. Again, if the BMC is sensing too slow of fans, it is going to speed them up. Best to use 4-pin these days as well.
I'm thinking #7 might be a real issue but all of the others are what you'd expect working with server boards. It isn't just Supermicro that does this either.

SM makes some workstation boards with server CPUs that support GPUs just for these use-cases.
Yes, I agree. I am trying to use a server board for my workstation, because this was the only Epyc board that I could find from Supermicro that has the ATX formfactor.

The only thing that really bothers me atm. is the iKVM and the gfx glitches it produces. Supermicro already got options to make the addin GPU work, if the iKVM could get disabled somehow with a new feature in the IPMI or BIOS, that would be awesome.
 

TXAG26

Active Member
Aug 2, 2016
397
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I did a similar build with a H11SSL-NC board & 7302P and have been pleased with it.

https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-nc-workstation-build-follow-up-report.27263/

It did take a little hit & miss with the AMD chipset drivers to get all of the yellow exclamations removed in Windows 10, but I got there using driver packages from Tyan/Asus/Gigabyte - I don't remember exactly which one ended up fixing it, but the latest version (which Supermicro did not seem to have on their site).
 

TXAG26

Active Member
Aug 2, 2016
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Have you updated your bios? v2.1 was released a couple weeks ago and it fixes a lot of early teething issues with the v2 boards.
Also make sure you use the most recent Windows 10 ISO (use the Microsoft media creation tool to download the latest).
My monitor has DisplayPort and VGA inputs. I have the DP port connected to a Nvidia 1660 Super and the VGA connected to the BMC and toggle between depending on whether I need into the bios/boot screen or not. Otherwise, if I cold boot/restart the machine, my 1660 Super does not start displaying anything until the blue windows flag appears on the screen, which is normal with external graphics.
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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maybe a reseat of the cpu is necessary?
heard SP3 / TR4 can be picky.

Good that it works in other systems, the error43 i mean, sadly doesn't.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
22
2
1
Have you updated your bios? v2.1 was released a couple weeks ago and it fixes a lot of early teething issues with the v2 boards.
Also make sure you use the most recent Windows 10 ISO (use the Microsoft media creation tool to download the latest).
My monitor has DisplayPort and VGA inputs. I have the DP port connected to a Nvidia 1660 Super and the VGA connected to the BMC and toggle between depending on whether I need into the bios/boot screen or not. Otherwise, if I cold boot/restart the machine, my 1660 Super does not start displaying anything until the blue windows flag appears on the screen, which is normal with external graphics.
I installed the latest BIOS version before I began installing Linux and Windows. Win10 was also the latest version downloaded with the media creation utility. Going to try the Tyan/Asus/Gigabyte packages now. The Dell one did not work.
 

TXAG26

Active Member
Aug 2, 2016
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I recall also installing the latest Threadripper driver package as well in Windows 10. I wish I had written down exactly which package(s) solved each missing driver issue.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
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I recall also installing the latest Threadripper driver package as well in Windows 10. I wish I had written down exactly which package(s) solved each missing driver issue.
Many thanks for the info. The X399 driver package helped to remove some of the yellow exclamation marks! The AMD SP3 packages all hang during install, did not matter from which vendor I downloaded them.

Now I have the following left:

1 x PCI Express Root Port
--> The device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12). If you want to use this device, you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system.
--> Location PCI bus 192, device 1, function 1

8 x PCI Enycryption / Decryption Controller
--> Still no driver found

Maybe the PCI Express Root Port is related to my Radeon WX7100. The AMD Radeon driver installer still shows me that the device can not be found.
 

TXAG26

Active Member
Aug 2, 2016
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I have the folder of all the driver packages I downloaded. I'd be happy to PM you a link to it if that would be helpful.
 

nico_g

New Member
Apr 11, 2020
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Hello,
I have the same MB with last firmware and all is working great with OpenSUSE LEAP 15.2 and an external AMD RX580 videocard.
The only problem is that I have to disable with jumper the internal videocard or the system always switch to this video output and the external videocard doesn't work.
Except this, all is OK : fan speed remains OK (SuperMicro CSE-743AC-1200B-SQ ) even under full load (EPYC 7402P can reach 70°C).
Shutdown is OK.
I agree that startup time is long, but I have a RAID card too (3108) but for a server it's not too bad. HP servers have long startup time for instance.
I'm very happy with this MB.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
22
2
1
I had to set the priority in the BIOS to the addin GPU. After that I was also able to set the primary display output of the GPU --> display port 1, display port 2 and display port 3 appeared in the bios. The Radeon WX 7100 I am using got 4 display ports, but no monitor is connected to the 4th display port, so it only showed me the 3 display ports in the bios. After I have set the primary output to external (of maybe offboard - can't remember), I have changed the jumper on the board to disable the internal GPU of the BMC.
 

nico_g

New Member
Apr 11, 2020
3
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Same thing here : priority to external vide in bios. Then I was able to see the bios and grub (boot manager) on the AMD videocard, but it wasn't enough...
The Linux system always switch to internal video. I tried two drivers, three linux distributions (Ubuntu, LEAP and Tumbleweed) and always the same problem.
The external vide ouput becames black : no X, no virtual console : display remains black : no signal.
I even open an issue with SuperMicro Support and on OpenSUSE forum, but no solution.
I think there definetely a problem with AMD videocards and internal video together.
But I will not use internal video so disabling it with the jumper is not a real problem for me.
 

freebitflow

New Member
Dec 31, 2019
22
2
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Yeah looks like I should have bought an AsrockRack board,... Atm. I can not even get my Radeon WX7100 installed on Windows 10, as there is no display adapter shown in the device manager and therefore the AMD driver tells me that no AMD card could be found. I guess it is an issue with the BIOS / iKVM.
 

111alan

Active Member
Mar 11, 2019
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Haerbing Institution of Technology
Yeah looks like I should have bought an AsrockRack board,... Atm. I can not even get my Radeon WX7100 installed on Windows 10, as there is no display adapter shown in the device manager and therefore the AMD driver tells me that no AMD card could be found. I guess it is an issue with the BIOS / iKVM.
Try installing the wx7100 in a different slot. Ive experienced this kind of problem before, on some boards only the graphics card in the first slot can't be properly drived.