• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Primary GPU passthrough

T

trizc

n00b
Joined
Oct 17, 2011
Messages
49
I am having issues trying to have iGPU enabled (for esxi console) and a 7970 passthrough successfully in ESXi. I assume the issue is because having both iGPU and the 7970, the ITX board is only a 4 pin and cannot supply extra power to both iGPU and 7970.

If I disable iGPU and try to passthrough the 7970 (the only graphics, which before the passthrough, would display esxi console) directly to a VM, would I run into any problems? (besides not having any console display for the ESXi server)?
I hear some people passthrough their video for an HTPC/ESXi all in one, but don't mention if they have another gfx.

in other words, can you run esxi completely headless (no gpu available to host)?

Also, I was wondering, would mining/overclocking via gpu passthrough prevent the entire system from crashing? is the gpu isolated to the vm to a point where if the gpu has an unstable overclock or just locks up, it can simply just be fixed by restarting the vm rather than restarting the entire machine?
 
Last edited:
trizc said:
in other words, can you run esxi completely headless (no gpu available to host)?
Click to expand...

Yes you can run it completely headless - though you will want to get most everything setup before attempting GPU pass through.

trizc said:
Also, I was wondering, would mining/overclocking via gpu passthrough prevent the entire system from crashing? is the gpu isolated to the vm to a point where if the gpu has an unstable overclock or just locks up, it can simply just be fixed by restarting the vm rather than restarting the entire machine?
Click to expand...

There is something that happens in which the host sends a reset signal to the GPU - this is purely software and not a hardware reset with which you would get with a full system restart. I've tried to find a link to where I found a good description. Though it is mentioned in numerous posts, just not explained in detail.
 
trizc said:
I am having issues trying to have iGPU enabled (for esxi console) and a 7970 passthrough successfully in ESXi. I assume the issue is because having both iGPU and the 7970, the ITX board is only a 4 pin and cannot supply extra power to both iGPU and 7970.

If I disable iGPU and try to passthrough the 7970 (the only graphics, which before the passthrough, would display esxi console) directly to a VM, would I run into any problems? (besides not having any console display for the ESXi server)?
I hear some people passthrough their video for an HTPC/ESXi all in one, but don't mention if they have another gfx.

in other words, can you run esxi completely headless (no gpu available to host)?

Also, I was wondering, would mining/overclocking via gpu passthrough prevent the entire system from crashing? is the gpu isolated to the vm to a point where if the gpu has an unstable overclock or just locks up, it can simply just be fixed by restarting the vm rather than restarting the entire machine?
Click to expand...

I run my box just like this. Single GPU dedicated to a VM which mines litecoin from time to time. It works perfectly. If anything happens to the VM the host stays functioning, you just reboot the VM and are back to business.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top