Installing Proxmox on TRX40

Long time lurker, first time poster. I recently put together a new build based on the new Threadripper - for the purpose of virtualizing a couple of desktop OS’es and some services - splitting out those very lovely IOMMU groups.

Unfortunately I have had quite some difficulty getting this build across the finish line, keeping it confined to a rather boring role as expensive container of mineral composite sitting idly under a desk, as I keep slamming into walls on the software front.

Testing around a bit I was able to get an Unraid install going right out of the box, but that doesn’t actually meet my requirements feature-wise. Proxmox is the ticket for that, but I have yet to locate a good resource on how to get that running on this setup:

  • Threadripper 3960
  • Zenith Extreme II

The closest I have come is this single thread recommending running the installer with mce=off:
[Erm. Ok not allowed to post links. The thread title is “Installation hangs” from Dec 23, 2019 on the Proxmox forums.]

This seems to have helped OP of that thread, which makes me think I am missing some probably-obvious-somewhere considerations. Curious whether I was simply dealing with an older kernel (compared to what Unraid used to install without a hitch), I gave the Ubuntu desktop installers a go as well. They seemed to exhibit similar failure behaviour with and without mce=off set, which seemed to confirm my suspicion of kernel incompatibility vs. Unraid.

However at this point, before digging more into specific issues, I wanted to more broadly look for do’s & don’ts of Proxmox on this hardware configuration. Surely others have had plenty of success setting this up and I am just missing the hordes of blog posts on the topic or missing something obvious and not worth blogging about?

Pleas. Halp.

What errors are you getting, while trying to cross this finish line? And unless you have kernel 5.6 or better you will need to always “pass mce=off” on the 39xx cpus

I gave up on the Zenith board after so many strange issues if you decide to use it with 1 maybe 2 VGA devices, and don’t expect them to run at full 16x all of the time as I found even on reboots they can sometimes kick the secondary card down to a downgraded 8x.
What version of Proxmox are you attempting to work with?

So many questions need to be answered. What are you booting onto… how much memory are you working with? and …

I am going to “assume” you are having the system “hang”, and just pass mce=off during install.

1 Like

Hey! Thank you for taking the time here. Apologies for the lack of detail.

I do not have access to the machine at this moment, but let me answer the questions I do have answers on hand for:

The experience is that the proxmox installer fails to boot (will fetch error information when I am at the machine again). I get into the boot menu and either just select “install” or hit “e” for grub config and edit launch parameters to include mce=off before launching from there. This installer boot process then fails - differently based on earlier branch.

The installer is booting from a stick flashed with the Proxmox VE 6.1 iso.

Memory-wise the system is currently equipped with 4x16 GB sticks clocked at 3200 IIRC.

Graphics-wise it has a 5700XT and another older & smaller AMD graphics card installed.

System-attached storage is 2x PCIe4 m.2 nvme sticks connected at the two slots by the PCIe sockets. A third stick is connected in the dimm.2 card which currently sits disconnected from the system (though this is ultimately where I would like for the Proxmox install to go - along with a couple of the VMs and services).

I think this covers everything except for the specific error messages - as mentioned. Any red flags or observations I should be aware of so far?

Hi angryant,

did you get the problem solved? We have a machine with the same hardware. Proxmox Installation of current version succeededs, but Proxmox crashes later with a kernel panic.

Best regards
Lukas

Hey Lukas
Unfortunately, no. As far as I could see at the time, the only real solution was a newer kernel version - which at the time was not available for Proxmox. Consequently I opted to in stead get by on an Ubuntu 20.04 install and just cover my virtualization needs with Virtual Machine Manager.

By no means perfect, but it was the most production-ready actual solution I could find at the time and seeing as it has not broken since, I have not spent time fixing it :wink: