X9SRW-F as a workstation with a graphics/video card

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Sonner

New Member
Jan 20, 2016
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Hello all,

I have this combination of hardware:
Supermicro X9SRW-F, 4x 4GB ECC RDIMM, E5-2670 v1, 1000GB SSD, and Nvidia 650Ti card
I can't get video out of the video card sockets. I get video out of the IPMI VGA socket though. I installed ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I tried the following:
changed PCIE gen3/2/1 and x8/x16/x4/x4 settings in bios
changed the video priority onboard/offboard settings in bios
changed PCIE addressing above 4G setting in bios
changed the ipmi VGA on jumper on the motherboard

Nothing helped.

Can this board support video cards at all? Is the list of supported video cards quite restricted?

I really need your help guys.
Thanks,
Sonner
 

William

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2015
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Sadly, that board does not support graphics cards in the PCIe slot.

The PCIe slots on that board are for riser cards. But even f you used a riser card to get the correct PCIe type of slot it still would not work with graphics cards.
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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@William why is that? How do they make them not work with GFX cards at all? How do they know it's a GFX card? Or is it something simpler I'm missing that prevents it?
 

William

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May 7, 2015
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Most server boards you see with PCIe slots will not work with graphics cards. Now you are making me have to remember why... have to think...

PCIe slots can be wired many different ways, depending on the slot... x4, x8, x16 etc. They maybe be electrically compatable but missing certain pins needed for GPU's. Quick way to tell, look at the slot, does it have that little card release lever at the end of the slot ? if no than most likely that slot cannot use a graphics card. This is not always true, some manufactures use cheaper slots that do not have that.

So to sum it up, a PCIe slot needs certain pins to be able to use graphics cards, these pin outs are not the same as you would find on say a Raid Card or network card.

I think there also needs to be added circuits on the motherboard itself to support GPU's.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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Very interesting, something I never even thought about.
 

Sonner

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Jan 20, 2016
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Most server boards you see with PCIe slots will not work with graphics cards. Now you are making me have to remember why... have to think...
Thanks for the reply.
Some boards simply don't support GPU cards. I found out that Supermicro defines GPU's as active or passive. Active means that they output video. Passive ones are used for compute purposes. X9SRW-F apparently supports passive GPU cards. I can't find out for sure if active GPUs are not supported. Probably not. X9SRA supports active GPU cards.
It seems that active GPU needs to be supported by mobo chipset and functionality must be enabled thru BIOS setting, and/or jumpers.

http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gt...micro-GPU-Optimized-GRID-HPC-Workstations.pdf
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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I just looked at the SM E3 board I have it has the clips, interesting I never paid attention to that before.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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I never had problems with server boards (=no audiochips, matrox gpus from the 90s/aspeed gpus onboard) and gpus as add on cards :eek:

Are you guys sure that you didn't mixed up pcie x16 slots with riser slots that look simmilar but have different pins/power? Especially the part about active/passive sounds like it.
 

William

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May 7, 2015
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It's true about the slots and what Sonner posted.

It also goes like this... Dual CPU ASUS Workstation boards like this one.
Z10PE-D8 WS | Motherboards | ASUS USA

See it says Quad Strength Graphics Power.
This does not mean it can run Quad SLI with say 4x 1080gtx's.
It means it can run 4x Compute cards

I have had so many people PM me and asking why the 4th card will not work, they can get 3 to run for Tri-SLI but not 4.
This is true across many boards, even Supermicro workstation boards.

This one.. I dubbed the Supermicro Xeon Phi Battleship.
Supermicro 7048GR-TR (Intel C612) Workstation Tower System Review

It came to me with 4x AMD GPU's. It would simply not run if I tried to make the cards work for graphics. If I wanted to use the 4 cards it had to be in compute mode and then use onboard video.
 
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Sonner

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Jan 20, 2016
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I got the X9SRW-F to work with a discrete GPU card.
I have this PCIe riser card RSC-R1UW-2E16. This gives you two x16 PCIe slots. Initially I would connect the nvidia 650Ti directly to it. It is a 2 slot wide card, so it would fit to the second PCIe slot. Well, this slot apparently doesn't support active GPU cards.
I used this PCIe extension cable:
Amazon.com: EZDIY PCI Express 16x Flexible Cable Card Extension Port Adapter High Speed Riser Card-9cm: Home Audio & Theater
I connected the card to the first slot.
Then I adjusted the BIOS setting like this:
  • PCIE gen1 and x16
  • video priority offboard
  • PCIE addressing above 4G
  • onboard VGA off jumper on the motherboard
  • ASPM to auto

Now I can use x9srw-f as a workstation. :)
I hope this info helps others.

Sonner
 

William

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May 7, 2015
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Hey good to hear !

I really didn't think that would work but glad it did !
I will remember this :)
 

ihrsetrdr

New Member
Jun 7, 2017
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I got the X9SRW-F to work with a discrete GPU card.
I have this PCIe riser card RSC-R1UW-2E16. This gives you two x16 PCIe slots. Initially I would connect the nvidia 650Ti directly to it. It is a 2 slot wide card, so it would fit to the second PCIe slot. Well, this slot apparently doesn't support active GPU cards.
I used this PCIe extension cable:
Amazon.com: EZDIY PCI Express 16x Flexible Cable Card Extension Port Adapter High Speed Riser Card-9cm: Home Audio & Theater
I connected the card to the first slot.
Then I adjusted the BIOS setting like this:
  • PCIE gen1 and x16
  • video priority offboard
  • PCIE addressing above 4G
  • onboard VGA off jumper on the motherboard
  • ASPM to auto

Now I can use x9srw-f as a workstation. :)
I hope this info helps others.

Sonner
Thanks for your service, i have a X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD that I want to use as a workstation, will see if I can get this working.
 

ihrsetrdr

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Jun 7, 2017
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**Update**
Go it it working, this board's BIOS didn't have the feature to adjust the PCIE gen3 to any other. Did change Video priority to "offboard", then switched the jumper(JPG 1).

;-)
 

Hermang

New Member
Oct 10, 2017
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Succeeded installing Nvidia Quadro 2000 directly (NO risers) on Supermicro X9DRi-F.

Instructions:

1. Flash latest bios X9DRi5.709 Be careful, follow ALL the Bios flash instructions (at the end don't forget to remove battery and reset CMOS)
2. Load bios defaults
3. Insert video card (confirmed for Quadro 2000) into slot 6.

From here as "Sonner" suggested (thank you Sonner very much !!!)

4. Change PCI-E Gen3 t=> Gen1 and x16
5. Video priority => Offboard
6. PCI-E addressing => Above 4G
7. ASPM => auto
8. Move Onboard VGA jumper JPG1 from 1-2 => 2-3

Now my system (2x E5-2620 V2, 64GB RAM, Win 8.1 Pro) working as a workstation very good
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Well maybe someone with asus z10pe-d8 ws can try to see if they can get quad sli working now...lol..

How do we know exactly what slots support active or passive gpu for any of these mb?
 

Unfussy

New Member
Jun 25, 2019
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Hello all,

I have this combination of hardware:
Supermicro X9SRW-F, 4x 4GB ECC RDIMM, E5-2670 v1, 1000GB SSD, and Nvidia 650Ti card
I can't get video out of the video card sockets. I get video out of the IPMI VGA socket though. I installed ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I tried the following:
changed PCIE gen3/2/1 and x8/x16/x4/x4 settings in bios
changed the video priority onboard/offboard settings in bios
changed PCIE addressing above 4G setting in bios
changed the ipmi VGA on jumper on the motherboard

Nothing helped.

Can this board support video cards at all? Is the list of supported video cards quite restricted?

I really need your help guys.
Thanks,
Sonner
I am having the same issue but I have no idea how to change the PCIE from Gen3 --> Gen1 also the board I am trying to do this on is the Supermicro X9DRi-F and I am on the latest BIOS version as of today
 

mrrensing01

Member
Dec 9, 2015
46
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X10SRW-F no issues with a FirePro v5900 in the top right riser slot (looking from the rear) with a Mellanox Connectx-2 in the bottom slot. Used it for gaming until I bought one of those DFI boxes...