Unraid GUI not on primary AMD iGPU display with nVidia in PCIe

[ConnerVT]

Background: Been running my server headless for the past couple years.  I just upgraded the 1500X/B350 to a 5700G/B550 yesterday, and has been running well for the past 24 hours.  I believe I have it all configured/working as it was previously.

 

One reason I went with the 5700G was to use the iGPU to connect to a PiKVM (thanks Hoopster!) and leave the nVidia P400 unconnected for Unraid to use for transcoding use (Plex/Unmanic).

 

Now for the head scratching part:  Booting from the Unraid OS GUI Mode, I see the initial boot up text on the screen (attached to the 5700G's iGPU).  After that, the screen goes blank for a bit, then that screen has only a non-blinking underline cursor.  If you reboot/shutdown from another computer browser, you can then see the shutdown text as Unraid unmounts/kills stuff in the shutdown process.  Another interesting thing to not is I have the GPU Statistics plugin, and it always shows at least one process running (the bzroot-gui?  nvidia-smi shows the process is /usr/libexec/Xorg).

 

I have double checked the BIOS settings, and I believe I have it set to boot to the iGPU (which, in fact, it does).  Though this may be the first MSI motherboard I have owned (ever?), so I don't know my way around the menus as I do for Gigabyte or ASRock.  I have not tried with a monitor attached to the P400, as I only have one monitor (easily) available, and the results would likely have been influenced by having a monitor attached to it anyway.  When I was running the 1500X combo, I could boot the Unraid GUI locally if I wished.

 

So the question is: Is there something I can do to force the Unraid GUI to display on the iGPU?

malta-tower-diagnostics-20230117-1344.zip

Edited January 22, 2023 by ConnerVT
Updated title

[ConnerVT]

It is said "God helps those who help themselves."  I've been trying, and spent the entire morning attempting to help myself.  But I have ended up right where I started.  Maybe the Unraid gods will look down favorably on me for my efforts.

 

I have been configuring and re-configuring BIOS, removing and reinstalling PCIe boards, and configuring and rebooting the server without getting the Unraid GUI to display on the iGPU whenever the nVidia Quadro P400 is installed.  With the P400 installed, I see the Unraid menu, it boots to the Unraid menu selection, I watch the initial boot message text.  Then the screen goes blank, and in a minute or too you can access the server from another machine.  Without the P400 installed, all boots as described before, but the Unraid GUI displays and works fine.

 

For the things I tried in BIOS, I lost track.  Motherboard is a MSI B-550-A Pro, which has the grey BIOS screen (if that helps any).  I had made so many changes, I finally got it to the point it was stuck in 640x480 mode, then had it so most of the text was in Chinese.  I finally just reset the BIOS, and put back the stable settings I have been running all this week.

 

Some of what I've tried (working from memory here):

-- Booted both in EUFI and Legacy modes

-- Set the default mode to IGP, Forced (not gaming Mode), and Auto (memory IGPU uses)

-- It has a mode to either scan for VGA ability, that is at default (I tried Ignore, that's when things went very bad)

-- SVM is enabled (for IOMMU, which I must have)

 

My best guess is that bzroot-gui (which I assume is the graphical terminal code) is choosing the PCIe display adapter over the IGPU, regardless of the setup.  Other OS will boot to the iGPU on this hardware, just not Unraid.

 

Is there something I can add to Syslinux that will direct the GUI to the iGPU?  I'm open to any and all advice at this point.

malta-tower-diagnostics-20230121-1347.zip

[jmztaylor]

I had a somewhat similar issue but I could never get it fixed.  But the syslinux options you can try that are posted in this thread.

 

 

[ConnerVT]

Following up to close this thread.  I jumped over to another support thread, where ich777, our master of all things display related, helped me out.

 

On 1/24/2023 at 9:58 AM, ich777 said:

Please run this command from a Unraid Terminal:

sed -i "/disable_xconfig=/c\disable_xconfig=true" /boot/config/plugins/nvidia-driver/settings.cfg

and reboot after that.

 

I had tried this earlier, but it didn't seem to work.  Turned out it *does* work perfectly, from a power off start.  There is some other issue going on, where a Reboot does display on the AMD iGPU but in a strange 640x960 resolution (output is long and squished).  So at least a partial solution, and one which I can work around, now that I know what I know now.

[juan11perez]

@ConnerVT

 

Thank you. Your post on ich777 instruction worked for me as well.