PCI 9800GT for HP DL380G6 Server power problem! Help!!

[brentonhill]

Hi all,

We have just got a DL380G6 server from HP and a PCI Nvidia 9800GT (The server will be used for rendering hence the need for a decent GFX card).

There is a problem because it seems to need extra power through a molex cable but there is no way I can see that we can draw that power from the server. When I boot up without the card being powered it makes a constant beep (as you would expect).

Anyone have any idea's about any cables I could use to power the card through the server?

Thanks in advance all,

Brent

[Moby-Dick]

thats a tricky one - I've never seen someon try to fit a high powered gfx card into a proliant before.

I'll ask one of my hardware guys and see what he says....

[Moby-Dick]

did you check with HP that this would be supported when you purchased the server ?

only option we could think of would be to run another ATX style PSU into the case.

[brentonhill]

That's what I was thinking as well. I don't suppose you know any power supplys that will fit the bill and also fit in the server do you?!

We did not check with HP. Silly us

Thanks for your advice again.

Brent

[Moby-Dick]

you should seriously consider kicking whoever specced this really quite hard - HP kit is designed to work with HP kit - as soon as you start playing about with PSU's you'll invalidate any warranty.

[brentonhill]

I assume they will get a kick. No idea who is responsible but it's our job to sort it unfortunately! Doh!!

Yeah that is a very good point about the warranty. Invalidating that is not an option. The only other way round I can think of is possibly running a molex into it directly from a wall adapter but it sounds messy for a server to be honest and I don't really like this option.

[Moby-Dick]

its very messy indeed. is this going to sit in a datacentre environment ?
if its doing rendering are you trying to GPU offload ? dont most render farms actually run headless anyway...

[brentonhill]

I assume all of the above is true. We have just been give the hardware and software and a voice has shouted go!

What are you suggesting?

[Moby-Dick]

well if you are using the CPu for rendering I'm not sure you need the GFX card at all.. you might have somethign else controlling the rendering ( 3dstudio max used to do this I think ) that will have the card to display the output , but its offloading the processing to the proliant.

[brentonhill]

Yup. What you are saying makes complete sense. I do not see the need for the card myself but I don't know if they are going to use it for anything else. Hmmm.

Of course what you have suggested will eliminate the issue completely assuming we can get confirmation that we do not need a gfx card.

If we still do and they decided to bite the bullet and replace the cards are there any you could recommend?

[Moby-Dick]

if its for just displaying an image then use the onboard
I dont know exactly what workload you are being asked to put on this box but at the moment I have a hunch some form of high end graphic workstation would suit your need better

ie a rackmount version of this....

http://www.broadberry.com/amd_quad_o...rkstations.htm

[alsenior]

dell did a rack mount version of the precision workstations that was made exactly for this sort of thng called the Precision R5400. though its not available any more

[brentonhill]

I think you are bang on. Work stations would have been ideal and cheaper but that ship has sailed. I thinking running with out a gfx card is the correct course of action but lets see what is decided. I will let you know!