Intel Socket 1151 Motherboards with IPMI AND Support for iGPU


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So, I think it's time to upgrade my 7-year old server. Currently running an E3-1230v3 on a Supermicro X10SL7-F with 16GB of ECC memory. I was late to upgrading to v6, but, boy! has it increased my usage of the server. That increased usage, though is exposing the limitation of my cores and memory. Unfortunately,  I don't think I can upgrade the processor to anything with more cores, just more MHz. So, this bundles looks pretty good. Two questions:

 

1. I want to add a gaming VM, would this be a good start to that? I'd think so, but is there anything I'm missing in differences between Xeon and desktop cpus?

 

2. There are now bundles with Supermicro X11SCL-F motherboards. I haven't seen much talk of that one. Of previous buyers, would you still go with the Asus if this had been available (or maybe it was)? I think SM board only has 6 SATA ports compared to 8 on Asus. Any other major differences?

 

Thanks!

 

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1. I want to add a gaming VM, would this be a good start to that? I'd think so, but is there anything I'm missing in differences between Xeon and desktop cpus?

The main difference with lower-end Xeon vs. desktop CPUs is support for ECC memory.  For some, that is no concern at all.  ECC is not required with unRAID. 

Yes, you should be able to run a gaming VM quite nicely with this CPU with anything from 2c/4t up to 4c/8t with plenty of horsepower left over for other NAS functions. This is especially true if you are using docker applications such as Plex/Emby or others that can take advantage of the integrated GPU.

 

 

2. There are now bundles with Supermicro X11SCL-F motherboards. I haven't seen much talk of that one. Of previous buyers, would you still go with the Asus if this had been available (or maybe it was)? I think SM board only has 6 SATA ports compared to 8 on Asus. Any other major differences?

That's a fine motherboard and a viable alternative to the ASRock E3C246D4U most of us in this thread are using.  In fact, many would prefer Supermicro to ASRock.  The biggest difference is that the X11SCL-F is based on the C242 chipset rather than the more capable C246 of the ASRock board.  If the differences don't matter to you, it's not a big at all.   

It is also unclear from the description if the X11SCL-F has a dedicated IPMI LAN port or if it is shared on one of the gigabit NICs.

 

This differences between the two boards are minor and either is a good choice.

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5 hours ago, jcato said:

2. There are now bundles with Supermicro X11SCL-F motherboards. I haven't seen much talk of that one. Of previous buyers, would you still go with the Asus if this had been available (or maybe it was)? I think SM board only has 6 SATA ports compared to 8 on Asus. Any other major differences?

Don't go with the X11SCL-F if you plan to use your iGPU for transcoding. The C242 chipset doesn't support QuickSync.

 

If you want a Supermicro C246 motherboard (does support QuickSync), the X11SCA-F or X11SCH-F (or X11SCH-LN4F) are fantastic options. I've had no trouble with my X11SCH-F since I got it.

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Thanks, Hoop and wreck (BTW, I'm a BSIE '92, Go Jackets!). The iGPU is important, so the SM bundle is out. I do use Emby and it currently has access to the 1 GPU in the system. I definitely want a GPU for Emby and another for VMs, so an iGPU is important and probably the easiest way to go.

 

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11 hours ago, ramblinreck47 said:

If you want a Supermicro C246 motherboard (does support QuickSync), the X11SCA-F or X11SCH-F (or X11SCH-LN4F) are fantastic options. I've had no trouble with my X11SCH-F since I got it.

 

Those MBs have an 1151 v2 Sockel. I got Problems with choose the CPU. I  would like maschine has iGPU (QuickSync)  IPMI, Takt min 2,4 pro Core  and min 8 Cores\ 16 Threads

 

Many Thanx!

Edited by norbo80
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Hello

 

I'm considering the E3C246D4U motherboard to pair with a Xeon E-228G but have two queries after reading through this thread:

 

1. Does quicksync only work with the custom 2.10A firmware mentioned or is it working in the officially available 2.30 firmware? If the official firmware is used do you have to choose whether to use only quicksync or only ipmi? 

 

2. The high temps being mentioned with custom firmware - are these just incorrect sensor readings or is the firmware actually affecting the fans and causing high temps? 

 

Thanks. 

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17 minutes ago, 1300GT said:

1. Does quicksync only work with the custom 2.10A firmware mentioned or is it working in the officially available 2.30 firmware? If the official firmware is used do you have to choose whether to use only quicksync or only ipmi? 

The current BIOS supporting iGPU in addition to BMC video is 2.21A, but, yes, you need a modified BIOS to support iGPU/Quicksync.  With the public/regular BIOS it is BMC video only and the iGPU cannot be utilized for QSV hardware transcoding.

 

19 minutes ago, 1300GT said:

2. The high temps being mentioned with custom firmware - are these just incorrect sensor readings or is the firmware actually affecting the fans and causing high temps?

Incorrect sensor readings.  My MB temp is currently reading 85C via IPMI. There is no way it is really that hot and Linux/unRAID are reporting the MB temp as 32C.

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2 hours ago, Hoopster said:

The current BIOS supporting iGPU in addition to BMC video is 2.21A, but, yes, you need a modified BIOS to support iGPU/Quicksync.  With the public/regular BIOS it is BMC video only and the iGPU cannot be utilized for QSV hardware transcoding.

 

Incorrect sensor readings.  My MB temp is currently reading 85C via IPMI. There is no way it is really that hot and Linux/unRAID are reporting the MB temp as 32C.

Thanks for the clarification, good to know the exact situation.

 

Only worry I have about this is how much support is the modified BIOS going to receive moving forward? No other problems seem to be raising their head but I'm worried that some future fix we all need will only be made on official BIOS release and not the custom one and we lose quicksync? 

 

To be fair contact at Asrock seems on the money and above and beyond helpful. 

 

Do we know if they are planning to roll quicksync into official firmware? 

 

 

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47 minutes ago, 1300GT said:

Only worry I have about this is how much support is the modified BIOS going to receive moving forward? No other problems seem to be raising their head but I'm worried that some future fix we all need will only be made on official BIOS release and not the custom one and we lose quicksync?

They provide this BIOS for large server hosting sites that need QSV transcoding to work on their hosted servers but, obviously, also need IPMI for managing all those servers.  The special BIOS was not created just for us unRAID users but we obviously get to benefit from it.  I doubt ASRock will drop support for this anytime soon.  They have maintained it through at least one major BIOS/BMC update.

 

47 minutes ago, 1300GT said:

Do we know if they are planning to roll quicksync into official firmware? 

It used to be that way.  On my backup server (an older Haswell generation MB and CPU), the iGPU/QSV support was in the regular BIOS.  For some reason (William says to decrease the possibility of BIOS stability for those who do not need this feature), iGPU is not supported in public BIOS and they do not appear to be headed in that direction.

Edited by Hoopster
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13 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

They provide this BIOS for large server hosting sites that need QSV transcoding to work on their hosted servers but, obviously, also need IPMI for managing all those servers.  The special BIOS was not created just for us unRAID users but we obviously get to benefit from it.  I doubt ASRock will drop support for this anytime soon.  They have maintained it through at least one major BIOS/BMC update.

 

It used to be that way.  On my backup server (an older Haswell generation MB and CPU), the iGPU/QSV support was in the regular BIOS.  For some reason (William says to decrease the possibility of BIOS stability for those who do not need this feature), iGPU is not supported in public BIOS and they do appear to be headed in that direction.

That's good to hear and makes sense.  Think I will just go for it as I can't find any other mATX motherboard with the features and 8 SATA ports to fit my smallish build plan.  I have a spare Quadro P2000 I will put in if all else fails but was going to get shot of it as it seemed overkill and rely solely on the CPU. 

 

Thanks for the help. Looking forward to building first UnRaid server. Finances willing! 

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8 hours ago, Hoopster said:

They provide this BIOS for large server hosting sites that need QSV transcoding to work on their hosted servers but, obviously, also need IPMI for managing all those servers.  The special BIOS was not created just for us unRAID users but we obviously get to benefit from it.  I doubt ASRock will drop support for this anytime soon.  They have maintained it through at least one major BIOS/BMC update.

 

It used to be that way.  On my backup server (an older Haswell generation MB and CPU), the iGPU/QSV support was in the regular BIOS.  For some reason (William says to decrease the possibility of BIOS stability for those who do not need this feature), iGPU is not supported in public BIOS and they do not appear to be headed in that direction.

I don’t understand why they can’t just have this feature in the public bios but have it disabled by default?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've finally have this setup in a test server. I've flashed the BIOS to L2.21A that was provided a couple of pages back. Only BIOS setting I changed was to Onboard graphics. Is there anything else that needs changing?

 

Did anyone run memtest86+? Since it's ECC, do I need to change any settings for it to be effective? I guess I'm wondering how ECC plays into this test.

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Well, I guess running it for the past 20 hours was a bit of a waste of energy!

 

One other thing I forgot to ask about...When I plug a network cable into the IPMI LAN socket, nothing happens. The activity lights don't light up and it doesn't get an IP address. If I plug into one of the other LANs, it works and IMPI works. I looked through the BIOS, but didn't find a setting I thought would help. Did I miss something? Or is that port maybe not working?

 

Thanks!

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2 hours ago, jcato said:

hen I plug a network cable into the IPMI LAN socket, nothing happens. The activity lights don't light up and it doesn't get an IP address. If I plug into one of the other LANs, it works and IMPI works. I looked through the BIOS, but didn't find a setting I thought would help

I have cables to all three NICs and all work.  Of course, the IPMI NIC works for my IPMI connection and I assigned a static address to it.

 

Under the Server Mgmt section of the BIOS, did you do the BMC Network Configuration?

 

Edited by Hoopster
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10 hours ago, Konijntjes said:

Did someone test the Asrock rack bord if you can use the IPMI vga with the intel gpu for plex and a nvidia/amd gpu for a vm ? Looking for a sollution that can use the 3 gpu's I know pci lanes will be a problem because i also going to use a lsi 3008 controller.

I have not tested the board with both the iGPU and a discrete graphics card; however, you should be OK with PCIe lanes.  A graphics card in the x16/x8 slot will switch to x8 automatically if the x8 slot is occupied.  Thus, you can have a graphics card at x8 and an x8 LSI controller running at the same time.  The iGPU is handled by the CPU lanes.

 

A PCIe NVMe SSD in the M.2 slot will disable the x4 slot on the board but not disable any SATA ports.

 

The bigger question is how the board will handle a PCIe graphics card when an iGPU is used.  The BMC (onboard) is specified as the primary graphics adapter and the iGPU is selected via a setting in a special BIOS in order for transcoding drivers to load. 

 

I don't know whether or not any BIOS selection needs to be made for a PCIe graphics card or if it will just be detected and available for passing through to a VM.

Edited by Hoopster
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On 2/25/2020 at 2:07 AM, Hoopster said:

I put the new system together over the weekend to do some breadboard testing outside my case.

 

I bought a new power supply (Corsair SF600 Platinum) and CPU cooler (Be Quiet Shadow Rock TF2) and a two port USB 2.0 card that connects to the motherboard and put it together with the CPU, MB, RAM and NVMe SSD purchased in the combo.  I got the USB 2.0 card because unRAID boot issues seem to be reduced when booting from a USB 2.0 port as opposed to USB 3.x.

 

So far, so good. It all works.

 

I installed a new BIOS (the one ASRock sent me to enable the iGPU), made a few BIOS modifications and booted into vanilla unRAID with no problems whatsoever.

 

My big concern is that the i915 (Intel iGPU drivers) are currently a mess in the 5.x versions of the Linux kernel and a 5.x version may be required to use the iGPU for hardware transcoding with the Xeon E-2288G CPU.

 

UPDATE: Tom says 6.9.0 RC will include Linux kernel 5.5.6 or higher and general release is likely to contain 5.6 kernel.  Hopefully, i915 issues were resolved in the 5.5.x kernels.

 

UPDATE 2:  Apparently, Kernel 5.5 has all the same iGPU bugs as prior kernels.

 

Tonight, I will do the swap of this system into my case and connect the HDDs, SSDs, etc. from my current array and boot with my current configuration.  After that, I am sure there will be some tweaking of settings and I can do some iGPU testing as well as get IPMI fine tuned.

 

The adventure has begun.  More to come.

Hello Hoopster, 

I have a problem stuck me for a while. I use i3-9100 CPU and a gigabyte motherboard,

when I try to use iGPU accelerate in jellyfin it seems CPU usage is too high (30~50% for a  1080P H264 8bit 3142 kbps video).

image.png.af934c5f3ed2aa664cb7e60ae88aaeb3.png

I have tried 6.8.2 and 6.9.0 rc1, after edit the go file I can see /dev/dri/renderD128 in both of them,

but when I go to docker console in jellyfin, the "vainfo" command failed(and I tried chmod 777 for /dev/dri too, no work):

root@362c9c255734:/# vainfo
bash: vainfo: command not found
root@362c9c255734:/# ls /dev/dri -l
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root videopjM7Y3FI 226,   0 Jun 21 02:59 card0
crw-rw---- 1 root videopjM7Y3FI 226, 128 Jun 21 02:59 renderD128
root@362c9c255734:/# 

Another thing is that when creating VM, the graphics card is intel 8th not 9th:

image.thumb.png.cb84b79e3abc0b1a5172fc3f9db7dab3.png

 

Could you tell me how to correctlly use hw acceleration on i3-9100 for jellyfin (or plex)? Thanks.

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On 6/20/2020 at 2:56 PM, Hoopster said:

I have not tested the board with both the iGPU and a discrete graphics card; however, you should be OK with PCIe lanes.  A graphics card in the x16/x8 slot will switch to x8 automatically if the x8 slot is occupied.  Thus, you can have a graphics card at x8 and an x8 LSI controller running at the same time.  The iGPU is handled by the CPU lanes.

 

A PCIe NVMe SSD in the M.2 slot will disable the x4 slot on the board but not disable any SATA ports.

 

The bigger question is how the board will handle a PCIe graphics card when an iGPU is used.  The BMC (onboard) is specified as the primary graphics adapter and the iGPU is selected via a setting in a special BIOS in order for transcoding drivers to load. 

 

I don't know whether or not any BIOS selection needs to be made for a PCIe graphics card or if it will just be detected and available for passing through to a VM.

Thanks for the information. Going to need to do some research

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On 6/21/2020 at 8:08 AM, nonikka said:

Could you tell me how to correctlly use hw acceleration on i3-9100 for jellyfin (or plex)?

This is a question best asked in the support thread for the particular Jellyfin docker container you are using.

 

I am using hardware acceleration without issue in Plex, but, I am not familiar with the particulars of configuring it for use in Jellyfin.

 

Are you passing /dev/dri through to Jellyfin in Extra Parameters or as a Device in the Jellyfin docker container?

Edited by Hoopster
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On 6/24/2020 at 4:00 AM, Hoopster said:

This is a question best asked in the support thread for the particular Jellyfin docker container you are using.

 

I am using hardware acceleration without issue in Plex, but, I am not familiar with the particulars of configuring it for use in Jellyfin.

 

Are you passing /dev/dri through to Jellyfin in Extra Parameters or as a Device in the Jellyfin docker container?

yes,I pass it as a device,maybe this is a issue about cpu gen9, anyway, thank you

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Hi all. I noticed today upon reboot that I got a 5-beep warning during POST. I believe that is just letting me know that it's running headless, but I don't recall ever hearing that before. Am I going crazy and it's always been there, or is this something I need to start investigating?

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7 minutes ago, kaiguy said:

I got a 5-beep warning during POST

I have never heard that. 

 

My three UPS units were all beeping this morning because of a power outage, but, no beeping from the server as it restarted after power restoration.

 

According to AMI BIOS/UEFI beep code charts, 5 beep means either no VGA card present or a processor failure.  It must not be the latter if your system is running fine.

 

I have never heard it complain about no VGA card present.  The BMC controls the VGA port and the iGPU is enabled as well.  Is your BMC/IPMI working OK?

 

Perhaps you should restart the server when convenient and see if it happens again.  If so, maybe reflash the BIOS or BMC?

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Thanks for your reply, @Hoopster.

 

Yeah, it does seem strange. BMC/IPMI seems fine--just accessed the HTML5 client--no problems. Server is up and running and working as expected. This is actually the 2nd time I've heard the 5 beeps at boot, so I don't think it was a fluke. Considering everything else seems fine, I'm tempted to just let this one go for now. I don't reboot often, and I can't seem to find any negative side effects.

 

Curious if others have had this 5-beep deal.

 

Edit: Ok, I rebooted to pop into the BIOS. No 5 beeps. Super odd. I looked at the BIOS error log as well, and the only thing it complained about was no keyboard over the past 6 or so boots (maybe it didn't beep this time since I was actively in an IPMI remote KVM and thus there was a virtual keyboard?). When I exited saving changes, again, no beeps. Shrug!

 

Edit2: Happened again on a reboot. I wonder if its only during reboot and not a full power down.

Edited by kaiguy
New info
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