Intel 12th generation Alder Lake / Hybrid CPU


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So I've stopped my Win11 VMs, Errors where reduced a lot, but there are 2x 2k12 Servers still running with CPU pinning. Those pinned cores are now still reporting the Error.

Not sure if this Message causes Issues at all, or if it is only Information.

 

I'll keep Unraid running without Win11 VMs for the next week to see if it crashes again...

 

 

 

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On 1/26/2022 at 7:52 AM, aaabbb said:

Hi Simon,

 

Any way we can help testing RC3? I have got 225v NIC issue as well, or when can we expect to see RC3?

One side note, I also tested in PVE v7, the NIC is working even with kernel 5.13.

 

Thanks.

Sorry dont have a time line for rc3. 

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On 1/26/2022 at 1:43 PM, NightOps said:

Sounds like this might be an issue others are experiencing... but I don't see a specific solution: 

 

Looks like there is a option to turn off.

 

Split-lock detection is enabled by default when it is supported by the hardware. However, system administrators have control over the feature: they can use a new kernel parameter (nosplit_lock_detect) at boot time to disable it. There is also a sysfs interface to disable it at runtime at /sys/devices/system/cpu/split_lock_detect.

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I've been contemplating a switch over to unRAID for a while. I wanted to give it a test run on a newly built server, but I'm facing two issues addressed in this thread: the Intel 2.5G NIC, and the iGPU.

 

When I try booting in GUI mode, I'm stuck at a blank screen with a cursor. Shutting down with the power button displays the usual text output, but otherwise nothing else is seen. I've tried i915.force_probe=4680 in both GRUB and syslinux config with no luck. I can't enable CSM on this motherboard while using the iGPU either.

 

Is it a moot point if I have no intention of buying a second NIC right now? I was hoping to explore some limited unRAID features through the GUI and get a feel for it before buying, but I'm not sure if it's required that you connect to get a trial key or if one was automatically assigned based on USB hardware ID. If not, I'll probably check back in a few months for updates.

 

unRAID 6.10.0-RC2 (UEFI boot)

MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4

i5-12600k

64GB RAM

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I may have jumped the gun on a hardware upgrade. I currently have a 6700k paired with a 1650 Super (light gaming vm) and a 1050ti (plex exclusively) 32gb ram. I've just purchased a 12700k with a MSI Z690-a and upgraded to slightly faster ddr4 32gb ram.

 

Reading through this thread, it looks like most folks are having issues using the igpu for transcoding. Since I plan on continuing to use the 1050ti for transcodes, should I expect fewer issues?

 

I was really only hoping to get a bit better performance from the gaming VM as the 6700k maxes out frequently right now. Plex and all associated containers work great on my current setup. Thanks in advance!

 

Upgrade specs:

unRAID 6.10.0-RC2

MSI Pro z690-A DDR4

1650 Super VM only

1050ti Plex Only

i7-12700k

32GB RAM

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On 2/2/2022 at 12:01 AM, DJ7 said:

I've been contemplating a switch over to unRAID for a while. I wanted to give it a test run on a newly built server, but I'm facing two issues addressed in this thread: the Intel 2.5G NIC, and the iGPU.

 

When I try booting in GUI mode, I'm stuck at a blank screen with a cursor. Shutting down with the power button displays the usual text output, but otherwise nothing else is seen. I've tried i915.force_probe=4680 in both GRUB and syslinux config with no luck. I can't enable CSM on this motherboard while using the iGPU either.

 

Is it a moot point if I have no intention of buying a second NIC right now? I was hoping to explore some limited unRAID features through the GUI and get a feel for it before buying, but I'm not sure if it's required that you connect to get a trial key or if one was automatically assigned based on USB hardware ID. If not, I'll probably check back in a few months for updates.

 

unRAID 6.10.0-RC2 (UEFI boot)

MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4

i5-12600k

64GB RAM

 

Have you installed the GPU top plugin? See instructions from SimonF here on page 3: 

 

I have the exact same hardware (mb + cpu) and GUI works for me with this.

 

Regarding the NIC: For me the NIC works, but only in 100 Mbps mode. Maybe that is enough for you if you are just trying it out? I got a PCI-E network card for about 10 euros and it works fine now with 1 Gbit.

 

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21 minutes ago, gevsan said:

Does unraid work with Alder Lake?

Yes my Test/Dev system is running on 12600K. But the onboard NIC is not supported in RC2 on the MSI PRO-A DDR5, but should be support when RC3 drops.

 

There may be some use cases that may not work based on Kernel etc.

 

image.png.33d9a0bd92e483a775f51b5b80b69a4d.png

 

Note this is on a internal release of RC3 so versions may change.

 

image.thumb.png.572451dafbabc91994c9fa9aae9aa41b.png

 

image.thumb.png.4ff859f46e5ac1d4fb253663c9115ed7.png

Edited by SimonF
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13 hours ago, SimonF said:

But the onboard NIC is not supported in RC2 on the MSI PRO-A DDR5, but should be support when RC3 drops.

I have the MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 and the onboard NIC is "kind of working" (100 MBps mode instead of 2.5 Gbps). Does your DDR5 version have the same onboard NIC? When you say that it will be supported in RC3, do you mean with the full 2.5 Gbps speed?

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7 minutes ago, Stringer said:

I have the MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 and the onboard NIC is "kind of working" (100 MBps mode instead of 2.5 Gbps). Does your DDR5 version have the same onboard NIC? When you say that it will be supported in RC3, do you mean with the full 2.5 Gbps speed?

 

IOMMU group 16:[8086:15f3] 05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)

 

yes ethtool reports 2500Mb/s

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So far I gotta say that everything is working good.

I do have a 12900k with ASRock Z690 extreme… only thing what’s bit bad with that board are the IOMMU groups - was not able to isolate audio, I‘m using a USB audio for my Win11 Gaming VM, this is working pretty good. Also both of the NICs are working fine.

Also had no system crashes so far.

I‘m on Unraid 6.10RC2.

Performance is also pretty nice so far.

For Dockers and stuff I have set some E-Cores, Win11 Gaming VM is running with P- an E-Cores.

 

Edited by chrizzo
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Ok,

 

After an Uptime of around an week, again complete crash. Syslog is not really showing something special again.

 

Crash happend at 14:11:20.

I guess this is a Hardware Problem, since i was pressing reset Button first, but no BIOS Post, after power cycle, normal Startup again.

 

Decided to change Memory Dimm slot order and also reseated them.

 

Syslog:

Feb  8 08:01:50 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdk
Feb  8 08:01:50 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdg
Feb  8 08:01:50 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sde
Feb  8 08:24:40 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdk
Feb  8 08:24:40 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdg
Feb  8 08:24:40 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sde
Feb  8 09:09:50 NAS kernel: x86/split lock detection: #AC: CPU 1/KVM/10285 took a split_lock trap at address: 0xfffff803da45ab8e
Feb  8 10:23:36 NAS kernel: x86/split lock detection: #AC: CPU 0/KVM/10284 took a split_lock trap at address: 0xfffff803da5c40a5
Feb  8 12:11:06 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdk
Feb  8 12:11:06 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdg
Feb  8 12:11:18 NAS emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sde
Feb  8 12:27:20 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdk
Feb  8 12:27:20 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdg
Feb  8 12:27:20 NAS emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sde
Feb  8 13:41:36 NAS kernel: x86/split lock detection: #AC: CPU 0/KVM/10284 took a split_lock trap at address: 0xfffff803da5c40a5
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS kernel: mdcmd (36): set md_write_method 1
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS kernel: 
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Arguments=-l off
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Max Scan Secs=10, Min Scan Secs=1
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Scan Type=adaptive
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Min Scan Depth=4
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Max Scan Depth=none
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: Use Command='find -noleaf'
Feb  8 20:00:37 NAS cache_dirs: ---------- Caching Directories ---------------

 

 

 

 

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27 minutes ago, benner said:

Has anybody gotten hardware transcoding to work using HVEC/x265 encoding on 6.10RC2? Or is this only going to be fixed in RC3?

I was able to run hardware transcoding from HVEC/x265 containers @4k down to 1080p on a 20Mbps line through Plex, but I have yet to truly be stable.  Handbrake encoding using QSV has not faired so well…. I’m guessing it’s going to take some BIOS maturation and kernel 15.16 before we see Alder Lake truly shine in unRAID for these purposes… but I’m a n00b at unRAID, so that’s just my $0.02

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23 minutes ago, Speedy905 said:

So, just by skimming through this thread, for stability I should go for 10th gen for now, or wait hopefully for a couple of weeks in order for 12th gen to stabilize? 

 

I want to upgrade my hardware, so I can start storing h265/4k content on my server. 

 

Would 12th gen Intel even work on 6.9.2?

It depends on what you mean by "work".  unRAID works fine using 11th/12th gen, but if you are wanting to use hardware transcoding for plex, QSV for handbrake, and pass-through graphics for VMs, then the next version of unRAID with kernel 5.16+ should be solid - but obviously I have no way to confirm that.  I've been running 11 days straight using software encoding/transcoding on an i5-12600k and up to 5 remote streams on Plex without any issues...but it's using way more CPU that I'd like... and if a file hits handbrake it either slows things way down (no CPU pinning), or the encode takes a while (6 CPUs pinned for handbrake, 1 for OS)

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6 minutes ago, NightOps said:

It depends on what you mean by "work".  unRAID works fine using 11th/12th gen, but if you are wanting to use hardware transcoding for plex, QSV for handbrake, and pass-through graphics for VMs, then the next version of unRAID with kernel 5.16+ should be solid - but obviously I have no way to confirm that.  I've been running 11 days straight using software encoding/transcoding on an i5-12600k and up to 5 remote streams on Plex without any issues...but it's using way more CPU that I'd like... and if a file hits handbrake it either slows things way down (no CPU pinning), or the encode takes a while (6 CPUs pinned for handbrake, 1 for OS)

Thanks for your insight. Hopefully when the stable release of 6.10 is out, it's all fixed.

 

I guess it's time to play the waiting game lmao. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just updated to a i7-12700K. Unraid was previously running on an i5-6600K and I had a gaming PC on a Ryzen 5600X. I decided to consolidate into one machine since a family member wanted my 5600X and I found the 6600K struggling a bit (4 cores, no hyper-threading).

 

I decided to go with the Asus Prime Z690-P D4. I have a number of PCIe cards and the layout of this board is pretty good. Only 4 SATA ports is kinda lame but some of the other boards (the ASRocks for example) disable SATA ports when all m.2 slots are populated. A nice thing about this board is you don't need the new Intel 1700 mounting hardware. I wish I new that before I ordered the updated mounting kit! 

 

Specs are:

Fractal Meshify 2 XL

Intel i7-12700K

EVGA CLC 280mm

Asus Prime Z690-P D4

2x 16GB T-Force Xtreem ARGB 4000MHz CL18 (probably need another kit)

EVGA FTW3 RTX 3080

MSI Aero GTX 1070

Fujitsu 9211-8I LSI

8x 3.5" HDD

1TB Kingston A2000 NVME (Cache)

2x 500GB NVME (VMs)

Fresco PCIe 1x to USB 3.0 Type C & Type A card

Seasonic FOCUS PX-850 (I was worried this wasn't going to be enough but seems fine)

 

 

The NIC (Realtek) is working on this board but showing as 1000 Mbps. I had some issues passing through my RTX 3080 to a Windows 11 VM and it seems like plugging an HDMI into the onboard graphics fixed it. I think Unraid was using the GPU to boot and wouldn't give it up? I ordered a dummy HDMI plug for that port going forward. I also had problems with the VM randomly freezing but updating to the Insider Preview resolved that (found the fix somewhere on this forum). Also had to do this to get Halo Infinite running. I was able to get Plex transcoding working with the iGPU except for HDR->SDR tone-mapping (no big deal for me). IOMMU groups were easy and I had no issues isolating stuff for my VMs.

 

I'm really happy with the performance of Alder Lake. I gave 6 Performance Cores to the Windows VM and don't notice any difference in gaming performance compared to the 5600X dedicated PC I was running (CPU wasn't typically the bottleneck in the games I play). Unraid is running way better too on 2P Cores and 4 Efficiency Cores. I was having significant I/O Wait problems on my 6600K and that seems to be gone. 

 

I experimented a bit with passing through E. Cores to the gaming VM (4P & 4E) but I don't think the VM realized the cores were different so I don't think the thread director was working right. I didn't specifically test it but performance seems better with 6P Cores.

IMG_3776.jpeg

IMG_3766.jpeg

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sorry to hijack this thread, already asked in Discord but as others also have the MSI Z690 Pro -A wifi DDR4 I have updated the bios to the 13.12.2021 version and I am always getting into the bios screen it never seems to attempt to boot the unraid USB stick. I can see the UEFI USB key detected and I put it has highest boot priority and the bios is in UEFI mode and Secure boot is disabled but it never boots into UnRaid. Any suggestions what you did to get it working?

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Just now, MrLondon said:

sorry to hijack this thread, already asked in Discord but as others also have the MSI Z690 Pro -A wifi DDR4 I have updated the bios to the 13.12.2021 version and I am always getting into the bios screen it never seems to attempt to boot the unraid USB stick. I can see the UEFI USB key detected and I put it has highest boot priority and the bios is in UEFI mode and Secure boot is disabled but it never boots into UnRaid. Any suggestions what you did to get it working?

I there a 'EFI-' folder on your flashdrive ?

If so, remove the trailing '-' and retry.

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On 2/22/2022 at 12:40 AM, MrLondon said:

ChatNoir you saved me, that was exactly the problem, would have never though of that. By the way has anybody managed to get the PWM controller working with the z690 board as somehow I was unable to get it detected, however sensors-detect is seeing it.

 

If I remember correctly, sensors-detect was selecting the wrong driver, nct6683. There is a plugin available for nct6687, which after installing, fans and sensors started working for me.

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