I have just taken ownership of a pre built server, using a Lenovo TS140 Mobo with a Xeon E3-1246 v3 CPU. The previous owner, its builder, had always used it with UnRaid in headless mode.

 

On boot up, regardless of whether I select headless or GUI, once Unraid boots from the USB, the video is ... scrambled, corrupted. Nothing is legible, just a mess of corrupted pixelated lines.

 

This is using the integrated Intel graphics connected to a 4K monitor via display port connection.

 

I would like to get the graphics working with Unraid - any ideas?

 

Diagnostics attached.

 

Thanks

 

Phil

tower-diagnostics-20190923-2042.zip

Haven't looked at diagnostics, but sounds like a hardware problem. Maybe one reason the previous owner ran it headless.

If you boot something other than Unraid, does it do the same?

Have not tried booting any other OS from the USB - nothing to hand to try.  MOBO bios is one revision behind (October 2018) the latest BIOS from Lenovo (July 2019) which only includes MDS fixes.

Was hoping someone who knows UnRaid could look at the diag and tell me if this is a common problem with a common fix.

3 hours ago, philw said:

Have not tried booting any other OS from the USB - nothing to hand to try

Google "Linux Live"

You might try disabling IOMMU (VT-d) in the BIOS

Or try this Google search to see if there are other ideas:

 

"PTE Read access is not set site:forums.unraid.net"

 

Take a look at your syslog in those diagnostics to see where I got that.

Yeah, had seen that in syslogs - forgot to mention in original post. Have already googled for this - of course - but all the posts I have read go nowhere and tail off with no conclusion. Seems that this came about from an UnRaid update in the past?

 

The BIOS is only one increment behind the latest, which only addresses MDA issues, and I am reluctant to flash the bios at this stage and risk ballsing up my otherwise functional server.

 

None of the posts from that search give me anything to go on. If I disable IOMMU in the BIOS, that will prevent me from ever using a VM?

Using a VM with UnRaid is one of the selling points for me.

 

Do I need to look for a PCI-E Graphics card to use as an alternative to the onboard Intel GPU, and disable the onboard? 

 

 

19 hours ago, philw said:

If I disable IOMMU in the BIOS, that will prevent me from ever using a VM?

Only prevents you from letting a VM directly use any of the hardware (passthrough).

So for anybody interested, or coming across this thread in the future, here is some progress. Of a sort.

 

I disabled legacy boot in the bios (?CSM - Compatibility Support Mode), so it is forced UEFI boot mode, and I no longer got the screen corruption on booting into UnRaid with GUI. However I got a black screen instead. Plus side is that on boot, I used to get an "Unbootable drive" message, to which I would have to hit any key to get past, before the UnRaid boot menu appeared. Now it boots cleanly, without the RAID controller BIOS splashes etc, to the UnRaid menu. But still no GUI.

 

I was still getting the errors in the log related to the integrated intel graphics controller though.

 

I tried adding "iommu=pt" to the boot options of the USB boot key - still no better.

 

I added "iommu=soft" and the video related errors in my syslog have gone ie :

"DMAR: [DMA Read] Request device [00:02.0] fault addr 9f5f5000 [fault reason 06] PTE Read access is not set"

 

When I boot headless now I get the console boot output which I have not seen before! and after boot a console login. I assume this is normal for headless!

 

What does the iommu=soft option actually do?

 

After more reading, I am doubting if the IGD will ever be useful for passthrough for VM use, and I am now facing the task of juggling the cards around in my system to make room for a PCIe graphics card.

Edited September 25, 20196 yr by philw