Hello,

 

A bit at my wits end on this one. I have a Supermicro X12 series board with an Intel i9-10900 and onboard GPU. I also have an nVidia RTX 4060 that I pass through to a Gaming VM.

 

My issue is that when the Server boots, I see the blue screen to choose which Unraid to boot (regular, GUI, etc.) and once it loads bzroot the screen goes black/blank. 

 

The server boots normally and I can access the Web GUI no problems. 

 

I'm actually unsure when this problem started until recently I had to troubleshoot locally and had no local console.

 

I've tried a bunch of things (short of removing the nvidia card), even setting the Primary graphics adapter in the BIOS to the IGFX, ensuring the i915 driver wasn't blacklisted in /boot/config/modprobe.d, etc.

 

Anyone have any tips? 

Possibly, it's outputting the screen to a different GPU, which GPU is the monitor connected to? And doe the board have IPMI? In doubt, post the diags.

 

 

Hey thanks for the reply @JorgeB, appreciate it.

 

yes the server does have IPMI, in fact that's how I was using it (sorry for leaving that detail out). Once I select the option from the Unraid boot (blue) menu, it loads bzroot and then goes blank on the IPMI. In the BIOS I set the iGPU as primary (instead of Auto) and nothing is plugged into either GPU. I don't have a monitor handy, would have to go borrow one (it's a headless server and my other computer is a Macbook Pro).

 

Attaching diagnostic file. 

stewie-diagnostics-20241211-0833.zip

Try blacklisting the i915 driver, then boot is safe (so that the Nvidia driver is also not loaded) and see if you get output like that.

 

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/release-notes/6.10.0#linux-kernel

No go unfortunately. Blacklisted the i915 as per the instructions and booted into Safe Mode, still black screen

 

Attached a diag from safe mode.

stewie-diagnostics-20241211-1050.zip

Just adding that I removed the nvidia driver just in case, still no joy. (safe or non safe).

Try blacklist the ast driver as well, leave the other ones blacklisted/uninstalled, and you are certain the monitor is connected to the IPMI output right?

Alright what an ordeal (esp as I don't have a monitor, but managed to use a USB HDMI Capture card with my iPad and Orion app). 

 

Putting solution here in case someone comes across this.

 

Issue is related to how Supermicro boards / IPMI works with an external GPU. Even though there are settings set, if you have any monitor (or in my case a dummy HDMI adapter) plugged in, it will switch to use that, which effectively means IPMI becomes useless. 

 

I had put the dummy adapter for my RTX 4060 in Windows to allow custom resolutions, I also wanted the ability to use VNC within Unraid in case the VM.

 

Anyway, with the Dummy plugged in and booting, it would switch to the RTX as the default GPU and kill the IPMI. 

 

Solution: stop using the Dummy adapter and install the custom virtualdisplay driver: https://github.com/VirtualDisplay/Virtual-Display-Driver

 

Now without the dummy plug, IPMI works and the Gaming VM works with the built-in VNC for accessing the VM. 

 

Still annoying it appears by the manual you can get Supermicro boards to not detect PCIE graphics adapters on boot, but on my X12SCA-F board this doesn't appear to do anything as with the dummy plug it still switches to this display for the BIOS, etc even with that option to skip enabled. 

 

Bottom line: if you have a supermicro board with IPMI and use a Gaming VM with a passthrough GPU, you basically can't have anything plugged in if you're using this headless. I am using this VM for Sunshine/Moonlight streaming to my Apple TVs, iPhone, etc. but because I have SUnshine switch to a custom resolution, enable HDR, etc depending on the device connected, I needed the dummy plug.. 

 

What a mess, but figured it out if anyone ever runs into this.