EXPIRED (US) - Oh look, hell just froze over - HP t740 thin clients are back below 400 USD (375 to 400, Wifi/BT or not)

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jmsq

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Dec 30, 2019
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May be dumb questions and things you already checked: Is Arch loading libva-mesa-driver with the AMD card? I think the system will run Mesa without it (its listed as optional for Mesa), but the framerate will probably be awful, so may be something to check? Are you using AMDGPU or AMDGPU PRO? I've found that AMDGPU PRO actually made my system perform a lot worse. My system differs from yours quite a bit though, so YMMV.

Did you load the proprietary NVIDIA driver package? Current generation NVIDIA driver configures itself quite nicely, but AMD's driver, even the proprietary "PRO" one, sometimes requires some tweaking in my limited experience with Arch.

Did you try any other benchmarks with the AMD? I know the Lexa architecture tanks pretty hard in some of the GFXBench tests for example, maybe Uingine Heaven is hard on it too?
I was only running the Mesa drivers on the WX4100; I have several system with AMD gpus that work perfectly fine on the mesa drivers, so I don't believe it was simply a driver configuration issue. libva-mesa-driver was installed, but I don't expect that particular library to have changed much as this was 3D rendering rather than video/2D playback. I've never bothered with the closed-source drivers for AMD, at least not since they were named catalyst ;)

Yeah for the nvidia test it was using the latest nvidia closed-source driver in the Arch repos.

I tried one or two other 3D loads, and they all experienced the weird frame-delay/rubberbanding on the 4100 in this system. I'll try the card in another rig to make sure it hasn't developed any hardware issues.
 
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Markess

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May 19, 2018
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I was only running the Mesa drivers on the WX4100; I have several system with AMD gpus that work perfectly fine on the mesa drivers, so I don't believe it was simply a driver configuration issue. libva-mesa-driver was installed, but I don't expect that particular library to have changed much as this was 3D rendering rather than video/2D playback. I've never bothered with the closed-source drivers for AMD, at least not since they were named catalyst ;)

Okay, Mesa covers what's loaded in Usespace for OpenGL, but have you confirmed what kernel module driver is loading for the GPU? For the open source driver, it should be AMDGPU for that card. In fact, I think it should be the module for both the WX4100 and the onboard. If its loading a generic VESA Module or the older RADEON that could cause the issues you're seeing.

Edit: Here's what's running in the system I'm typing on right now running a WX2100:

The running driver for OpenGL:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.0.3

_____________________________________________________

And for the Kernel Module:

lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'

04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Lexa XT [Radeon PRO WX 2100]
Subsystem: Dell Lexa XT [Radeon PRO WX 2100]
Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
Kernel modules: amdgpu
 
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jmsq

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Dec 30, 2019
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I was only running the Mesa drivers on the WX4100; I have several system with AMD gpus that work perfectly fine on the mesa drivers, so I don't believe it was simply a driver configuration issue. libva-mesa-driver was installed, but I don't expect that particular library to have changed much as this was 3D rendering rather than video/2D playback. I've never bothered with the closed-source drivers for AMD, at least not since they were named catalyst ;)

Yeah for the nvidia test it was using the latest nvidia closed-source driver in the Arch repos.

I tried one or two other 3D loads, and they all experienced the weird frame-delay/rubberbanding on the 4100 in this system. I'll try the card in another rig to make sure it hasn't developed any hardware issues.
So now I'm starting to suspect the WX4100 may be susceptible to the Polaris power bug where it overdraws on slot power: AMD Releases Statement On Radeon RX 480 Power Consumption; More Details Tuesday and the T740 is sensitive to it.

I received a Radeon RX 6400 (XFX SWFT105 for reference) and it also appears to work flawlessly in the T740 along with the Quadro P1000. So if you want the best Linux 3D experience on these tiny systems, go for a low-profile RX 6400.
 
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rekd0514

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May 11, 2015
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So now I'm starting to suspect the WX4100 may be susceptible to the Polaris power bug where it overdraws on slot power: AMD Releases Statement On Radeon RX 480 Power Consumption; More Details Tuesday and the T740 is sensitive to it.

I received a Radeon RX 6400 (XFX SWFT105 for reference) and it also appears to work flawlessly in the T740 along with the Quadro P1000. So if you want the best Linux 3D experience on these tiny systems, go for a low-profile RX 6400.
It looks like the V1756B only has PCI-E 3.0 so the 6400 will be bandwidth limited in that 16x slot but will work.
 
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