[vfio-users] Code 43 with Rampage III and GTX660 in Windows 10

[Brian Yglesias]

Shortly after our last correspondence, I phoned eVGA and they came through with the UEFI bios.  Your clarification was enough to get me over the hump at that point.  I really appreciate your help in this matter.  It's taken me quite some time and effort to get here, and your contributions on the list and with the howto have been invaluable along the way.

(I still can't believe this actually works!  I'm sure you get that a lot.)

I know you don't do SLI, but the way you say it in the guide seems to imply that it is possible.  I've seen other references to it being done.  With that said, I can't find any first-hand accounts or any specific documentation of any sort for that matter.  My understanding is that it should not be possible with a Q35 chipset.  Do you have any direction to point me in with respect to this?

Thanks again for everything,
Brian 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Williamson" <alex.l.williamson at gmail.com>
To: "Brian Yglesias" <brian at atlanticdigitalsolutions.com>
Cc: "vfio-users" <vfio-users at redhat.com>
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2016 6:11:35 PM
Subject: Re: [vfio-users] Code 43 with Rampage III and GTX660 in Windows 10

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 1:58 PM, Brian Yglesias <
brian at atlanticdigitalsolutions.com> wrote:

> I've switched to OVMF bios, and there is no change.  Shouldn't I be able
> to see the BIOS splash screen irrespective of the nvidia driver detecting
> that it is in a VM?


Let's clarify something, the ROM on the card provides the pre-boot driver
for the card.  Therefore if you're running an OVMF VM w/o a UEFI ROM, you
won't see a splash screen.  Likewise if you run SeaBIOS without enabling
VGA to the device (ie. x-vga, possibly patching host i915 driver), then the
execution of the ROM won't work and you won't get a splash screen.  The VM
firmware also tends to only initialize the primary VM graphics, so if the
assigned GPU is not the primary (typically exclusive) graphics, no splash
screen.  ROM level drivers don't care about a hypervisor.


>   That would have to happen once the OS is loaded, so then perhaps my
> problem is not that.
>
> I'm still awaiting EVGA to send me a UEFI bios image for my card.  They
> said they would if I provided them with an s/n and p/n, but have yet to get
> back to me.
>

They were pretty quick for me when I requested the same for my 660.


> I'm following the guide for my distro in lieu of the 4th installment in
> your tips and trick series:  https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Pci_passthrough
> , and at the bottom it seems to imply that I must use SeaBios if my card is
> not UEFI.  I'm not sure if this is intended.
>

If you care about the ROM being compatible, which you do in this case,
that's true.  I would never recommend to someone that potentially has
access to a working UEFI ROM for their GPU to go the SeaBIOS, x-vga route
though.  If you're going to use SeaBIOS, you really need to read the 5th
section of my guide and you might even need to build your own kernel if you
have i915 host graphics.


> As to your suggestion of using pc-i440fx, my distro seems to have dropped
> support for that.  I'm looking into getting that working now.


Find a new distro?  Thanks,

Alex