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I have a Supermicro x9dri-ln4f+ connected to a microscope. It needs to have USB3, a high-res lag free display and 10GbE in same server. Currently my 6 PCIe slots look like:
- #1-4: important cards,
- #5: GPU, and
- #6: USB3 card
Using the on-board graphics or IPMI is too slow. Using a USB3 DisplayLink card for graphics also does not work. The on-board Matrox G200eW has a known problem which prevents it from working with DisplayLink cards:
... the Matrox G200e video card is not capable of supporting DisplayLink devices — it doesn't support WWDM or Aero, graphics technologies that are part of Vista/Win7 which USB graphics relies on on those platforms.
That seems to leave me with two options:
- Getting a PCIe expander or somewhat weird PCIe->Thunderbolt->USB3&10GbE chain,
- or removing the GPU card that runs the display (2440×1440 HDM/DVI/DisplayPort).
I have an on-board USB2, PCIe USB3 card and VGA graphics, with no Thunderbolt technology devices.
The OS has to be Windows 7.
Question: Is there a way to run a monitor independently of an on-board graphics adapter without using a PCIe slot for a discrete GPU?
aaaaa says reinstate Monica
Posted 2016-01-28T23:43:25.143
Reputation: 213
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This MoBo does carry a IPMI port, but its iKVM resolution will be too low and latency too high.Ok, so you can use onboard graphics and IPMI. The only problem is speed and lag. If you can work around that then there is no need for a graphics card. Luckily there are many solutions for remote access, sunch as X windows and remote desktop. Wouldn't that be a solution. And then you could move the graphics card to your workstation or whereever you manage the server from when you are not in the serverroom or datacenter. – Hennes – 2016-02-03T07:28:35.537@Hennes In our case computer is running microscope. It is quite important to have high resolution (2440x1440, I think) and smooth user interface, because operator can spend hours in front of it. Frankly, I didn't think about using remote desktop.But isn't it true that graphics still have to be generated by host's GPU? I.e. you can't pull out more pixels through remote desktop than you can through cable into display? – aaaaa says reinstate Monica – 2016-02-03T09:14:11.757
@Hennes windows 7. From my googling it seems that Remote Desktop and VNC use server's GPU, not host's http://superuser.com/questions/690611/remote-desktop-graphics-card/690613#690613
– aaaaa says reinstate Monica – 2016-02-03T10:23:47.110@scott Thank you. My most basic problem though is that I need to have USB3, high-res display, and 10GbE in same server where I have only 2 PCIe slots available. Now GPU and USB3 take it. Do you think I should put that as a problem statement? – aaaaa says reinstate Monica – 2016-02-03T10:31:12.400
@aaaaaa: Yes, it might be clearer if you started by stating what you need and describing what you have, and then get into discussing what you believe you need to do and the issues that you face. – Scott – 2016-02-03T10:48:28.167
@Hennes thank you, I edited language a bit. It is now much clearer and I understand my options better as well. Will look into server GPU-independent Win terminal or virtualization (is it even an option?...) Also we got 2xXeon on MoBo, I don't understand your point – aaaaa says reinstate Monica – 2016-02-03T11:04:46.817
If I google for that motherboard I find this link with more than 2 PCI-e slots. It mentions
– Hennes – 2016-02-03T11:10:59.8874 x16 PCI-E 3.0,1 x8 PCI-E 3.0, 1 x4 PCI-E 3.0 (in x8). That is significantly more than only 2 PCI-e slots. So either my link is wrong, or the motherboard model in the post is wrong, or only one CPU is installed making some of the PCI-e lanes not work since they link to the CPU, or you cards which physically block multiple slots).@hennes I have more cards, but I can't remove them. Only GPU and USB3 slots are flexible – aaaaa says reinstate Monica – 2016-02-03T11:31:10.243
Ah, OK. Might want to edit that in. Especially if one is another 10GbE card. Then we can suggest dual port 10GbE cards and such. – Hennes – 2016-02-03T11:33:05.640