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Hardware acceleration question w/ server board IPMI


rpoitras

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rpoitras
I'm currently running my Emby server on the following hardware:

 

ASRock E3C226D2I server motherboard with an Intel Xeon E3-1220V3 3.1G CPU.

 

The motherboard has a built-in graphics controller (ASPEED AST2300) used for IPMI (remote control/viewing of the server) as well as a PCIe slot, which if you use for a graphics card you must disable the onboard graphics. Disabling onboard graphics also disables IPMI as IPMI cannot be used with external graphics controllers.

 

I was wondering if I can upgrade my CPU to one with Intel QuickSync and be able to use that for hardware acceleration in software such as Emby/ffmpeg. The thing is, I'm not sure how that works with the onboard graphics and IPMI. Does anyone familiar with these types of server motherboards know if you can leave the graphics set to "Use onboard graphics" yet still use the built-in GPU on the CPU? Or, do you have to enable Intel graphics in the BIOS which means you are telling the system to only use it, thus disabling the IPMI functionality?

 

I just don't want to upgrade to a CPU w/ graphics and find out I lose the IPMI capabilities which I use fairly often.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

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dcrdev

Hah, your unlikely to find much information about this elsewhere... so it's lucky your posting here.

 

I pretty much have the same board except it's got the newer c236 chipset - the E3C236D2I. The board I have has the same ASPeed video controller and I've paired it with a Xeon 1245v6, which has Intel P630 graphics; I took a gamble on the CPU, I wasn't sure I'd be able to use it for hardware acceleration given the onboard controller.

 

When I first built the system the Intel graphics were disabled and it simply wasn't being exposed via the pcie bus at all. There wasn't any way to enable it in the bios, I later discovered that in previous bios iterations there was an option called "IGFX" which enabled the integrated graphics. Unfortunately for me the bios I had was the earliest version that supported Kaby Lake, so I couldn't downgrade. I spent several weeks emailing ASRock Rack support about the issue (they ignore most emails) and eventually I got a response with a modified bios that re-enabled the option.

 

Now I have it working and it works well with emby, I'm still able to output via vga with the ASpeed controller and IPMI still works.

 

Quoting the manual from my board, this is the option you need:

IGFX
Use this item to enable or disable Intel Quick Sync Video functions. Enabled for video
encoding and transcoding only, but not for display output. 

^ If you have that in your bios, you should be good to go. If you don't be prepared for a very frustrating experience with ASrock Rack technical support.

 

Oh and here's my build:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/48575-zfs-system/?hl=%2Bzfs+%2Bbuild&do=findComment&comment=461238

Edited by dcrdev
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rpoitras

Wow, thanks for that! I was hoping someone with a similar setup would see this. Thanks for the info.

 

I have an updated/non-released bios firmware from ASRock (BIOS REV L3.30i) due to asking them a similar question but I haven't installed it because I still wasn't sure if what I wanted to do was possible. I will check my current firmware and if that option is not found will try the newer unreleased one and check again before upgrading. Thanks for your help!

 

FYI, if you need a great contact at ASRock, email William Lee (william@asrockamerica.com) from ASRock. I'm not shy to give his contact info out because it's readily available online if you search his name. I heard about him from others who recommended him as a contact because he is extremely helpful and answers quickly. He has helped me out a few times in the past and was always very knowledgeable.

Edited by rpoitras
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  • 1 year later...
rpoitras

@@dcrdev

 

Not sure if you will see this, but wondering if you could help me out again. :)

 

I recently upgraded my CPU to an Intel Xeon E3-1285L V4, as my board is a little older and that's about the best I could do for what was supported, available, and what I wanted to spend. I'm running Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS. Aside from the CPU upgrade I was hoping to get the onboard GPU working in Emby as well. The GPU is Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300. I was running the latest firmware for my board (3.50) which didn't have the iGfx option so I emailed William at ASRock and he provided a firmware (3.41B) with iGfx capabilities. I tried enabling the iGfx option but still don't see anything in Ubuntu. Supposedly with 18.04 the drivers are installed automatically but when running vainfo I get the following:

error: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set in the environment.
error: can't connect to X server!
libva info: VA-API version 1.1.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns -1
libva error: va_getDriverName() failed with unknown libva error,driver_name=(null)
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

I'm not sure if I need to install any drivers to get it working or if it is, indeed, supposed to happen automatically. I did not re-install Ubuntu. The image below shows the available options. I tried enabling the IGfx option but Ubuntu still doesn't seem to see the GPU. Any ideas or does any of this ring a bell when you got your setup working? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

5c749771a567f_bios.jpg

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rpoitras

I'm thinking my board is too old or not really designed to use the iGPU even though ASRock has a special firmware. There's a note on their site for my m/b that says the integrated graphics will not work with Xeon 12xx chips, which is what I have, but I was hoping they got around that limitation with the firmware. I've tried various commands to get the iGPU hardware listed in the console and regardless of the setting in the BIOS it still only shows the onboard VGA/IPMI chip (ASpeed 2300), so I think i'm out of luck.

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rpoitras

So, to close up this topic, after speaking to William at ASRock today he told me he got it working there by enabling the "Intel VGA Device Control" option. Once I got home I tried it out and it works perfectly! The IPMI on my server board still works as it should and now Emby picks up the GPU. I tested while watching the GPU usage (intel_gpu_top in Ubuntu) and sure enough it's chugging away. Just wanted to update in case someone else comes across the same issue.

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