ML150 G5 possible BIOS bug with add-on pcie video card

[Laszlo Neufeld]

Hi all,

According to the user guide for this series and other threads in the forums, once I add a video card, the BIOS should disable the onboard graphics. I tried this with two cards: An Nvidia 8600 series card and ATI x1600 series card, both pcie x16 cards. Both cards are confirmed good through an x8 to x16 adapter in various other systems, including several Dell servers. (SC440, SC1430, 1900) (To be comprehensive, I tested normal x16 operation, as well as 1x, 4x, and x8 through the adapter.) Whichever slot I insert the card into, device manager will show a yellow exclamtion sign for that particular pcie slot with the following message: "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)"

It seems to me that the BIOS fails to disable the onboard graphics card and allocate resources to the add-in card. I tried reseting the BIOS; no help. I tried diabling the onboard video in device manager in safemode and rebooting; no help. I tried connecting video cables only to the add-on board, hoping that it will detect better that way; No cigar. There is no BIOS option to disable the onboard video. There is no jumper.

I have the latest 5100 chipset drivers, the latest firmware for everything, etc. This strongly appears to be a hardware issue.

[AGardner · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem. The problem occurs when you have 4Gb or more of memory inserted into the server. If you have less that 4Gb the graphics card will work. It seems to be something to do with how memory is mapped to the PCI-E slots.

It's also worth noting that if you have 4Gb of RAM the add on card will work in slot 1 and the onboard VGA will disable as expected (however, you get the issue described above and the addon card is useless).

If you have less than 4Gb and install the card in slot 1, the server will boot up and display POST and OS startup, but the OS will not load it's GUI.

Come on HP, fix this. I've had to gimp my machine to make it functional (and I've tried both XP and Server 2003, same result). I expect this kind of quality from Dell, not HP!

Andrew Gardner
Steria Ltd.

[Spencer Bizzell]

Hi Guys,

I am looking at getting a ML150 G5 and need to be able to add a graphics card for Autocad. I want to use it as a vitualization server running a few copies of Windows XP with a few users connecting remotely in to use Autcad Engineering Drafting software. I will need a Graphics Add-in card and was hoping a could slot a ATI Radeon XT1900 PCI-E x16.

Is this possible, have you came right with your cards in your servers.

Please let me know,

Thanks,

Spencer

[Lucas Peres]

Hi I'm having the same issue with the exactly the same setup. ML 150 G5 with nVidea Geforce 9800Gtx on linux.

I can see both vga cards (onboard and add-on) using lspci:

03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9800 GT (rev a2)
08:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)

But the onboard still being used, and i can't find somehow to disable and use the nVidea card.

Thanks.

Lucas

[Laszlo Neufeld]

For those of you still strugglng with high-marging but questionable quality HP servers, move yourself to Dell. After this G5 video card snag, I returned the server and got myself a PowerEdge 2900 III. I cut the video card down to 8x with a dremel, connected the aux power on the card with an adapter, and off I went. I can also confirm that the PowerEdge T300 will work with two, yes, TWO, PCIe video cards, in addition to the SAS add-on board. Suck on that HP!

PS. The reason they never fixed this is because they did not say anything in the docs about you being able to use a video card in this machine, so if it's not in the docs, you are SOL.

[Lucas Peres]

Unfortunately that seems to be the real truth.

I've followed some other post which stated that updating the BIOS ROM fix the error. I've updated to latest version (07/06/2009).

But now my CPU FAN is at 100% ALWAYS and still can't use the video card.

It seems that HP really don't care to their customers, and people who owns their servers are completely alone without of any type of support.

Its a shame for companies at that size don't have a post-buy policy to support and keep their customers satisfied and well supported.

If anyone still interested in this problem, I will still try to find somehow a solution, as unfortunately I've spent all $ my in this server and can't switch to a dell.

But please HP, we are still waiting for at least one official input regarding this issue.

[TarunJain]

Hi,
Could HP Moderator reply to this thread?

[u84823]

Re fan speed - this issue is listed three times on the front page of this board already. You need to update the iLO management firmware, even if the iLO is not fitted.

Re graphics card, simply put the MLxxx series ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BE USED AS DESKTOPS. From the web site, "designed from the ground up as a true server; Designed to provide just the right features..."

If you need a workstation, BUY A WORKSTATION and stop moaning about it!

If on the other hand you want a very cheap server that will show a full 4GB of USABLE memory under Windows Server 2003, the ML11x are the machine for you :)

[u84823]

Also notice that video RAM DIRECTLY reduces the amount of RAM available to 32-bit Windows.

[TarunJain]

Thanks for highlighting the difference between server and desktop
Just for clarity could someone confirm which server will suit the need of "Spencer Bizzell" as posted above?
"I want to use it as a vitualization server running a few copies of Windows XP with a few users connecting remotely in to use Autcad Engineering Drafting software."
A Server or Workstation?
If a server then which model?

[u84823]

If the application requires dedicated graphics hardware then it is not a candidate for virtualisation presently.

[TarunJain]

Agreed,
By the way how do you rate performance of hp blade workstation solution?
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/workstation/solution.html

[Laszlo Neufeld]

u84823,

You should refrain from submitting dimwitted replies in threads you have no business being in. Case in point: your simpleton observation that what separates a workstation from a proper server is the lack of a GPU.

In case you have been living on a planet far far away... a long time ago, note the following: there are many applications where GPUs are much faster than CPUs. Examples of such are simulations (i.e. medical, molecule interactions and visualization, subatomic, etc), cryptography, parallel computing, HPC, clusters, etc.

Just because a machine has a GPU condemns it to neither being a server nor being a workstation.

What should be separating servers from workstations should be cost, cooling (and accoustics), expansion, reliability, redundancy, management, service/support, etc. The ability to utilize a GPU does not determine classification, just a limitation.

This server competes directly with the PowerEdge T300, and while the ML150 G5 can have more hard drives then the T300 (at substantial additional cost), the ML150 is like a one-legged cripple in an ass kicking contest. The T300 will take multiple video cards, sound cards, 3rd party RAID adapters, and the list goes on. And the T300 can have redundant power supplies. The T300 is a "server," but it's no cripple. The ML150 is a cripple.

[u84823]

LOL so buy the Dell for those applications. But why moan about the HP? TBH the amount of servers bought for such application is probably <1% of the market.

I'm also not personally aware of any supercomputers built for the applications you mention being built from £200 ML1xx series machines - happy to be corrected!

[Vladimir Slavchevsky]

Hi all,

I also have one of those servers and also was thinking to use it as a workstation. The most stable and easy to install OS was Windows Server 2008 EPC edition. All other Win servers or XP distributions were have=ing serious problems during the installation process...
I did not tried to use the PCIe x8 slot with a PCIe x16 video card yet. After knowing the fact that I will be able to use only 4 GBs of RAM I am starting to think that I will never try to use a PCIe video card.
If anyone successfully installed a PCIe video card and at the same time is using more than 4GBs of RAM please give us some help.
About the integrated video card - when I installed the original drivers the performance is going down so I uninstalled the video drivers and now I use a Matrox driver that is showing 8MB of memory for the graphics (when the driver provided by HP is installed Windows Serv.2008EPC is showing 32MB of video memory and has poor performance). SO I suggest to anyone to use the drivers that Windows is detecting automatically...
I hope that someone successfully installed a video card with more than 4GB of RAM and will show us the way...

Have fun with your ML150G5,

Vladimir

[toramarn]

I'm using ML150 G6 + Kubuntu 8.04 + on-board video. The highest res I can get is 1024x768. Is this the highest res I can get?

[Vladimir Slavchevsky]

Hi
I am using 1920x1080 with Windows Server 2008 EPC and it is working fine...
An automatic message is showing on my screen that is saying suggested resolution 1920x1080.
the monitor is BENQ E2220HDP. Maybe you can try with another monitor that can support different resolution, I am not sure...

[kanetp]

Hi,

I don't suppose this issue of non-working pcie video card has been resolved since the last post? 

I have an ML150 G5 I was preparing to use as a workstation, only to find I have wasted my time.

(I did not buy it for this purpose, it's a server I no longer require and I thought I would get some use out of it instead of it collecting dust).

Regards,

Kane.

[kanetp]

FYI, I have two PCIe video cards working on the ML150 G5 if I reduce the memory installed to 2GB.

However I would like to use all of the 8GB of memory I have and the two video cards.

Is the PCIe memory mapping issue due to hardware limitation (chipset, etc?) or is it something that can be rectified with a BIOS update?

Regards,

Kane.

[m0nk]

As mentioned this hardware is made to be a server only.  However you can buy a Video Card based on Nvidea 630 chipset like the one made by Asus and plug it on slot 2 which is a standard x8 connector at x4 speed. It will work and will provide you some speed but not the full power that you expect.

However make sure you upgrade to the latest BIOS to avoid memory issues and then the Lightout 100 to complete the process. On my case it worked well and I'm happy with this performance.

[GregRecords]

I have successfully installed a PCI-E 2.0 x16 video card in a HP Proliant ML150 G6

I am running Windows 7 on the system with 8GB RAM & 4TB of disk space. Here is the setup. I disabled RAID. The disks are being controlled by AHCI like a workstation. Win7 installed flawlessly in the AHCI environment. I set the onboard video, bios setting to always on. I installed an EVGA Nvidia GeForce 210 in the x16 PCI-E slot. I started Windows in safe mode, leaving the monitor plugged into the server’s onboard video. Once the OS loaded, I inserted the EVGA install CD & ran the install routine only installing the driver for the card. Also while in safe mode I uninstalled the driver for the onboard Matrox Video. This would let Windows install a standard generic driver for the on board video. I restarted the machine, changed the onboard video card setting in the bios back to auto detect, switched the monitor over to the connector on the new card, booted into windows normally, the installation of the generic driver for the onboard card took place & asked for a restart. I restarted, booting into Windows normally once again, went to the Device Manager & disabled the onboard video card & set the preferences for the new PCI-E card in the Nvidia control panel. I now have a HP Proliant ML150 G6 running an operating system it does not support with a PCI-E 2.0 x16 video card with 1024MB of DDR3. I am using the system as a Digital Audio Work Station doing multi-track audio recording.