Benchmarking A 10-Core Tyan/IBM POWER Server For ~$300 USD

[matevy]

There's no open-source BMC for this machine. If you google for it, you'll find a post in openbmc's github saying they do not support habanero.

Does anybody know if it is possible to reflash the BMC with latest version from IBM included in

8348_810.1806.20180213a_update.hpm?

It complains the given file is Signed and I should provide unsigned file.

[illuhad]

I have myself an issue trying to setup a discrete graphic card in it. I tried a Quadro K600 and a radeon HD 6450 and in both case, the card is visible with lspci, the kernel module is loaded, but no screen is detected by xorg. I tried get-edid which detected only the screen plugged on the VGA output of the motherboard, but none plugged on the discrete cards (tried dvi and displayport).

I notice that you guys mentioned using a Radeon. Would you have any clue to give me please ?

I had to disable the integrated AST VGA to get the discrete VGA to work. This is also described on the Raptor Talos wiki: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/GPU

(blacklist ast, modprobe.blacklist=ast video=offbff kernel parameters, Xorg.conf file as described).

I had originally used an old Radeon HD6750, but that turned out to be unstable and caused hangs. I have then tried a new Radeon Pro WX2100 to test the amdgpu driver, and that works flawlessly.

I've also had issues with the GPU disappearing from lspci after some time. This was fixed by upgrading to Tyan's 2016 firmware.

[illuhad]

Does anybody know if it is possible to reflash the BMC with latest version from IBM included in

8348_810.1806.20180213a_update.hpm?

It complains the given file is Signed and I should provide unsigned file.

I've tried that as well and never could get it to work (BMC at least, BIOS works if you use ipmitool hpm upgrade). If you can find a way, I would be very interested in that!

[matevy]

I've tried that as well and never could get it to work (BMC at least, BIOS works if you use ipmitool hpm upgrade). If you can find a way, I would be very interested in that!

hi,

yep, the rest is simple. Just BMC is resisting.
just perhaps by looking at Tyan provided BMC firmware supposedly without the signature and IBM provided firmware with the signature one would be able to guess that to remove. But at the moment I am missing description of HPM.1 firmware file format. It is open standard but you need to pay for it at picmg.org :-(

[gnufreex]

Can report that server works with 2 RDIMM. Noise is sickening, so I am examining options for 4u case with big fans.

Right now considering order from AliBaba, something like this https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...1107hQxlAX&s=p

But problem is, this is 650mm deep, and this 2u server is 711mm deep. Not sure if mobo will fit.

[PapaEmeritux]

Hi Illuhad,
Thank you very much for your answer.

I had to disable the integrated AST VGA to get the discrete VGA to work. This is also described on the Raptor Talos wiki: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Troubleshooting/GPU

(blacklist ast, modprobe.blacklist=ast video=offbff kernel parameters, Xorg.conf file as described).

I found the raptor Wiki before and tried it with no success. Following your message, I tried it again and it still did not work until I discovered that I had to stop lightdm completetly and start it again :

sudo service lightdm stop
sudo service lightdm start

instead of doing a restart, and then it worked.

Another thing I discovered is that you don't need to blacklist the AST2400 as I did it first as non permanent setting from petitboot and then after reboot, it still worked. Better, you can have the AST2400 working at boot (if you are not monitoring with a serial cable) and then the discrete card working with Xorg :-).

I had originally used an old Radeon HD6750, but that turned out to be unstable and caused hangs. I have then tried a new Radeon Pro WX2100 to test the amdgpu driver, and that works flawlessly.

I am using a HD8490 and have no problem so far, but I just managed to make it work ;-).

Anyway, Thank you very much for your help.

[PapaEmeritux]

Can report that server works with 2 RDIMM.

What slots did you use?
By the way, did anyone of you guys experienced centaurs not working with some memory sticks? I had only 32GB detected out of the 64 that I had installed at first. I thought some sticks were dead, but moving them around, it turned out that the ones I identified as working were no longer working on other centaurs or paired with another stick and same for the ones identified as not working. Finally I found by sheer luck a configuration where the 8 sticks are detected and the 4 centaurs are happy in a stable way. But it still a mystery!

Noise is sickening, so I am examining options for 4u case with big fans.

Yes, absolutely deafening, I had to wear ear protection to operate it.

I don't know if it helps, but I managed to fit the motherboard in a Silverstone Multi-GD07 enclosure (originally a HTPC case) and used a cooler master water cooling (ML240L) and some Noctua fans for the centaurs as described above. It required a bit of fiddling but it can know sit on my desk.

[VinceLe]

Hello,

I got mine a few days ago, and am also experiencing RAM problems.

What slots did you use?

I have 8 sticks of 8GB, that I put in the blue slots, accordingly to (what I think is) what the manual explain to be the optimal configuration.

By the way, did anyone of you guys experienced centaurs not working with some memory sticks? I had only 32GB detected out of the 64 that I had installed at first. I thought some sticks were dead, but moving them around, it turned out that the ones I identified as working were no longer working on other centaurs or paired with another stick and same for the ones identified as not working. Finally I found by sheer luck a configuration where the 8 sticks are detected and the 4 centaurs are happy in a stable way. But it still a mystery!

Only 48GB are recognized here, the first 2 blue slots were not accepting the sticks, I moved to 2 white ones, i think on the 3rd centaur (not sure I remember properly, and I'm not where the server is located). They were not recognized there too, so I pulled them out, thinking they were bad.

I will try other combinations, hoping for some luck...

BTW if you look at RAM sensors during powering up, you'll see the RAM being detected then disappearing. At least I've seen that myself.

I'll report back my findings here, but not this week though.

[PapaEmeritux]

Hello VinceLe,

Hello,
BTW if you look at RAM sensors during powering up, you'll see the RAM being detected then disappearing. At least I've seen that myself.

I find the BMC quite unstable while reading sensors. Sometimes, resetting it brings some stability :

ipmitool -U ADMIN -P admin -H 192.168.1.xx bmc reset warm

(if you have connected the BMC ethernet interface to your network)

For checking whether the DRAM and the centaurs are working properly, I found that the following method is reliable :

ipmitool -U ADMIN -P admin -H 192.168.1.xx sensor |grep 0x4080

It gives the following result with the 8 sticks in the blue slots :

DIMM Func 0      | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 2      | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 8      | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 10     | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 16     | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 18     | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 24     | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
DIMM Func 26     | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
Membuf Func 0    | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
Membuf Func 1    | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
Membuf Func 2    | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na        
Membuf Func 3    | 0x0        | discrete   | 0x4080| na        | na        | na        | na        | na        | na

[niroin00]

Are the servers sold out? I can't get any reply from the seller.