Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Steve Litt]

Kim Hawtin said on Sat, 1 Jan 2022 15:19:16 +1000

>Next time I build something like this, I would rather the
>GPU be on chip to avoid extra pci-e cards.

All other things being equal, this is exactly right. But my experience
building my "poweruser" computer was that, using a graphics card, I
could get a nice Radeon, instead of having to settle for what's on the
mobo, possibly a Linux-sabotaging Nvidea.

Also, to meet a price-performance point, my mobo had no GPU. So, after
trying nVidea and finding it impossible to get to work exactly right, I
bought the following very nice low wattage, no fan, relatively cheap
Radeon:

product: Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]

My computer, which was bought and assembled 12.5 months ago, consists
of:

Motherboard: Micro-Star MAG B550 TOMAHAWK (MS-7C91)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor, 2 threads per core

Video: Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]

Audio: Was Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series] on mobo but
jack broke, now C-Media Electronics, Inc. Audio Adapter (Unitek
Y-247A) USB sound card

Root partition disk: Micron/Crucial TechnologyCT2000P2SSD8 2TB NVMe 
Mainly houses /etc and /usr, almost all others mounted

Spinning rust disk: 12TB WDC WD141KRYZ-01

RAM: 64GB

Case: Gigantic full tower with room to roam, loaded with fans, and all
   rear USB ports brought out to the front with extension cables. Silly
   fan lights etc turned off. Fans on full blast all the time, I value
   cool running. 



SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Kim Hawtin]

> On 28 Dec 2021, at 3:54 am, Antony  wrote:
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels) 
> operation on such machines?

> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the 
> topic would be appreciated :)

I run a bunch of ryzen (3700’s IIRR) based machines in our build servers at 
work. A cluster for Kubernetes. Main issues are motherboard drivers for things 
like NICs and M2/SATA. Squeezed into a 2U case, cooling is interesting too. 
While we ended up rolling out ubuntu 20.04, I spent some time evaluating them 
on devuan 3. Everything was supported, save the onboard NIC, so ended up 
running a pair of low profile cards in each to get LACP to a pair of switches. 
We also went with some USB based temp monitoring and fan control units, not 
supported on devuan 3 due to libraries, thus ubuntu. Might pay me to go look at 
this issue again now I’ve moved machines to devuan 4. The desktop MoBos support 
GPU on the CPU, A DVI port is on the MoBo, however that was not in the CPU 
model we chose, so ran a low profile GPU instead. Next time I build something 
like this, I would rather the GPU be on chip to avoid extra pci-e cards.

Look to the chipset on your MoBo of choice before hand. Hopefully you can avoid 
any pain this way in advance =)

Cheers,

Kim
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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Antony Stone]

On Monday 27 December 2021 at 18:54:41, Antony Stone wrote:

> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the
> topic would be appreciated :)

Many thanks to all who replied, either on- or off-list, with comments and 
observations.  Very helpful indeed.

This is a very pleasant community of helpful people with a wide range of 
expertise.

I wish you all the best for 2022.


Antony.

-- 
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Weil sie Piraten...


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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[d...@d404.nl]

On 27-12-2021 18:54, Antony Stone wrote:

Hi.

Disclaimer: I generally don't like people saying things like "I read somewhere
that..." without backing up what they're talking about, but...

I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD
Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.

Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels)
operation on such machines?

If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards and not
laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this would be for
networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.

Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the
topic would be appreciated :)


Thanks,


Antony.

One of my systems is a early build with a AMD 2400G a few years ago 
which had some graphics issues with X. One kernel later and manually 
added AMD APU firmware from kernel.org for the graphics part and 
everything runs smoothly ever since.


Grtz,

Nick


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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[onefang]

On 2021-12-27 18:54:41, Antony Stone wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> Disclaimer: I generally don't like people saying things like "I read 
> somewhere 
> that..." without backing up what they're talking about, but...
> 
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD 
> Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.
> 
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels) 
> operation on such machines?
> 
> If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards and not 
> laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this would be for 
> networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.
> 
> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the 
> topic would be appreciated :)

Since you asked, I get to brag.  B-)

I built a super desktop a bit over a year ago.

Motherboard - MSI Creator TRX40
CPU - AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 4 GHz 64-Core Processor
RAM - G.Skill Trident Z Neo 256 GB (8 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage (OS) - Seagate FireCuda 520 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
Storage (everything else) - Seagate 16TB Ironwolf Pro SATA 7200RPM NAS Hard 
Drive
GPU - Sapphire Radeon RX 5600 XT BE 6 GB PULSE
OS - Devuan Beowulf.

I skimped on the graphics card, coz gamers made everyone put RGBling on
everything, so I had to back up one model to get one without RGBling.  I
wish I could have done the same for the RAM, AND gotten ECC, but alas
neither was available.  The RGBling on the RAM can ONLY be controlled
from Windows, and doesn't remember it's settings after reboot. I can
disable RGBling on motherboard from BIOS and case from a switch.   This
desktop sits on the floor, but projects RGBling onto my high ceiling. 
Pffft

First problem was the motherboard, two of the RAM sockets screwed up my
RAM if they where full.  A replacement motherboard sorted that out, but
it was a bitch figuring that out.  Which one was faulty, mobo or RAM?

Second problem was the PSU, it's fan is now permanently stuck on, and
they want me to spend a month waiting for it to travel across the world
and back before they will replace it.  My old desktop died, not gonna do
that.  I can't go a month without a computer.

Third problem is that I need a backported kernel to support that graphics
card properly, and a third party Mesa - 
http://ppa.launchpad.net/kisak/turtle/ubuntu bionic

Somewhere deep inside the Mesa packages, one of them needlessly depended
on a tiny package being a version up from what was available.  I built my
own version of that package with a bumped version number.

It's been running for over a year since I got it all sorted out.  The
only problem is that once in a blue moon X craps out.  I think I have
that traced to a Mesa bug.  Installing Chimaera on it might solve those X
issues, no need for a backported kernel, may not need third party Mesa.

I may get a more recent GPU for the thing, with more memory, if I can
avoid selling off my kidneys, first born, and avoid RGBling.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[terryc]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 18:54:41 +0100
Antony Stone  wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> Disclaimer: I generally don't like people saying things like "I read
> somewhere that..." without backing up what they're talking about,
> but...
> 
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux
> on AMD Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor
> performance.
> 
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard
> kernels) operation on such machines?

TL:DR =No. My problems seemed to all be with FX CPU and older hardware
and I'm finding no problems with the three models(3. 5 & 7) that I am
currently running,


I/We  run eight (8) ASUS mobos + AMD CPU (2xFX & Ryzen 3x3, 2x5  & 1x7).
All but one run under Devuan.  

The quick summary of what I remember of Debian, then Devuan pdrformance;

 Jessie; bad and would halt a system. I think these were all FX
 cpus and other ancient hardware.

 Beowulf; okay, but from time to time there would be copious
 messages in dmesg. Again, I think this was only the FX CPU and
 older hardware.

 Chimaera; seems to be 'fixed', very rare kernel line in dmesg. All
 old hardware has gone. My systems are now all ASUS Mobo with 2xFX
 and 6 times Ryzen.

Problems seemed to be associated with desktops uses, rather than one
purpose servers(web, mail, ftp, storage). May also have been related to
heavy demands as AMD support for their recent/leading(?) GPUS under
Linux is consistently bad and unreliable.
> 
> If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards
> and not laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this
> would be for networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.
> 
> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data,
> on the topic would be appreciated :)

I saw most problems on this hardware as it was my desktop/main machine
(highest load) then; 
 Mobo: ASUS Model ?? 
 CPU: AMD FX-8350 (8) @ 4.000GHz
 Memory: 483MiB / 15972MiB 

It also had problems under beowulf of handling software raid in a USB
external box in that it would spend hours on array maintenance. That
seems to have disappeared under Chimaera (nothing ion dmesg and no
usb/mdadm thrashing).

The only other problem system is with the mailer (Ryzen 3) dropping the
occassional logging entry. I only noticed this as I was watching for
email to arrive whilst solving a blocking problem and it didn't appear
in the log, but popped up on the desktop. Then again, this system is
also running a firewall. Although there isn't any indicators of load
any where as it all happens in ram, but dmesg is all FW logging.

System details;
Mobo: ASUS Prime 320M-K
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G (4) @ 3.500GHz 

Also my main spinning rust storage which has no errors under dmesg
under Beowulf (time for upgrade)

 Mobo: ASUS  Prime B350-Plus 
 CPU: AMD A8-9600 RADEON R7 4C+6G (4) @ 3.100GHz 
 Memory: 143MiB / 3800MiB .

I wish I had purchased a couple more of these systems at the time.


So NO,  I can not say there is a AMD Ryzen problem.

The other user is running on
 ASUS Prime A520-M
 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (12) @ 3.600GHz
 GPU: AMD ATI Radeon R7 370 / R9 270X/370X
 Memory: 2916MiB / 15978MiB 
and the only dmesg entries relate to USB interaction with a Canon MFX
printer(TS9565) and their proprietary program (scangearmp2). The GPU
does not get any load.

YMMV, but when I purchased the two Ryzen 5 systems, there was
absolutely nothing with VEGA on it(built in graphics) which saves you
from having to buy a video card for the server.

Hope that helps.

Terry

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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Gregory Nowak via Dng]

On Mon, Dec 27, 2021 at 06:54:41PM +0100, Antony Stone wrote:
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD 
> Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.

Yes, ryzen had issues in its early days:







I'm running Beowulf on a custom built ryzen 7 1800x system with a MSI
b350 gaming plus motherboard with a custom compiled 5.15.11 kernel
with no problems. While this is considered old hardware at end of
2021, I'm still amazed by how fast it is compared to what I was used
to for a long time before building this machine.

Greg


-- 
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gpg public key: http://www.gregn.net/pubkey.asc
skype: gregn1
(authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Martin Steigerwald]

Antony Stone - 27.12.21, 18:54:41 CET:
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux
> on AMD Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor
> performance.
> 
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard
> kernels) operation on such machines?
> 
> If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards
> and not laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this
> would be for networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.
> 
> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data,
> on the topic would be appreciated :)

Only experience from laptop. ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 with AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 
4750U.

Works nicely. I managed to run it below its original specs by compiling 
a kernel to "powersave" CPU governor as default. But after I corrected 
that I am very pleased with performance of this 8-core hyper threading 
CPU. Using "schedutil" governor currently and looking forward to new AMD 
P-state driver for Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPU.

I do not expect the Zen 2 desktop CPU experience to be much different, 
except for the higher performance of a desktop CPU.


Not relevant for server usage:

Standby mostly works. Even in Windows mode. Up to kernel 5.15 at least. 
With 5.16-rc2 I had black screen. Suspend to disk was broken some kernel 
releases ago. Memory corruption after waking up leading to BTRFS errors. 

Graphics mostly works with for a laptop GPU impressive enough frame 
rates at least for not too demanding games.

Best,
-- 
Martin


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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[tempforever]

Antony Stone wrote:
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD 
> Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.
>
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels) 
> operation on such machines?
>
> If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards and not 
> laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this would be for 
> networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.
>
> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the 
> topic would be appreciated :)
>
I'm running Beowulf on a (desktop) Ryzen 5 3600.  The only issue I had
initially was I needed a newer kernel (the backports one is good) for
the motherboard sensors.  Oh and I think my motherboard audio has driver
problems that I never got sorted out, but I use USB headphones.  As to
performance and reliability, I'm pleased with both.  Considering another
Ryzen when it's time to upgrade again (this is my first AMD desktop system).
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Re: [DNG] Ryzen?

[Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via Dng]

Anno domini 2021 Mon, 27 Dec 18:54:41 +0100
 Antony Stone scripsit:
> Hi.
>
> Disclaimer: I generally don't like people saying things like "I read somewhere
> that..." without backing up what they're talking about, but...
>
> I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD
> Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.
>
> Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels)
> operation on such machines?

I have on my desktop a AMD Ryzen 5 3600 + MSI B550-A PRO and run chimaera + 
TDE. Quite satisfied with the setup, I just had problems with GRUB (boot 
timeout must  be 0 .. or do not pres any key).

Nik

>
> If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards and not
> laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this would be for
> networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.
>
> Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the
> topic would be appreciated :)
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Antony.
>



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[DNG] Ryzen?

[Antony Stone]

Hi.

Disclaimer: I generally don't like people saying things like "I read somewhere 
that..." without backing up what they're talking about, but...

I'm sure I've read somewhere (and not especially recently) that Linux on AMD 
Ryzen CPUs can be unreliable and/or surprisingly poor performance.

Can anyone comment on current (eg: Beowulf / Chimaera with standard kernels) 
operation on such machines?

If it matters, I'm looking at desktop / tower / server motherboards and not 
laptops, and I don't care two hoots about graphics - this would be for 
networked machines accessed exclusively remotely.

Any opinions from personal experience, or pointers to reliable data, on the 
topic would be appreciated :)


Thanks,


Antony.

-- 
"Life is just a lot better if you feel you're having 10 [small] wins a day 
rather than a [big] win every 10 years or so."

 - Chris Hadfield, former skiing (and ski racing) instructor
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