Dell Inspiron 7740 Nvidia RTX 3000 pass-through failure

[MilenKo]

Hello all.

I was charged with the research of using PROXMOX v7.1-10 and its eventual use on virtualizing a few high-end Dell Inspiron laptops for the needs of our company.

I am not new to Linux systems nor Windows, however I must say that I've only heard of ProxMox recently, and I was intrigued by the features and eventual price for the PRO support. That is why I've decided to dedicate a laptop having the parameters that should suit a perfect setup:

12 x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (1 Socket)
64GB RAM
512GB Nvme drive
NVIDIA Corporation TU106GLM [Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile / Max-Q] (rev a1)

The initial installation went without any issues, and I was super happy to see in no time the system up and running. So I took the steps to extract the GPU VID/PID and modify the VM pass-through in order to allow the use of a few VMs sharing the laptop resources.

After installing Windows 10 system, I've added my PCI-E device with the following parameters: 0000.01:00.0,pcie-1,x-vga=on.

Once the VM got booted, I was able to discover the display adapter in Other devices, however when I try to install the appropriate driver, it fails stating that the driver is not intended for the version of my OS.

I've read in some other topics, that some computers required a dummy HDMI connector to trick the system, so I plugged an actual monitor to the laptop and retried my test after a full system restart - that lead to exactly the same problem.

FYI, did try multiple configurations suggested to other websites and/or topics around here, and they all failed to succeed. Multiple re-installs and starting from scratch lead me nowhere better.

What I am starting to question is that I might need to add some other Nvidia PassThrough PCI's to my VM so that it gets properly revised (my lspci lists 4:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU106GLM [Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile / Max-Q] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
01:00.2 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 USB 3.1 Host Controller (rev a1)
01:00.3 Serial bus controller [0c80]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 USB Type-C UCSI Controller (rev a1)

Any feedback or kind assistance will be greatly appreciated as my goal is to prove ProxMox system is a perfect fit for our corporate needs, which would lead eventually to some extra licenses being bought to support the further project development.

I am ready to provide any information that could be further required or even start from scratch if that would help eliminate some try-error leftovers.

 

[MilenKo]

Here is a screenshot of the issue. I've tried manually extraction the latest Nvidia drivers 511.65 Win11_Win10-DCH_64 and search for a suitable driver, however nothing positive came out as well.

 

[MilenKo]

I am starting to wonder, is it possible that somehow the Nvidia RTX Quadro 3000 is not compatible with the PCI-E Pass through?

Every test I've tried connecting an HDMI cable and following almost 100 successful stories about Desktops have failed to get applied on my laptop. I have a desktop I will try to use instead of the laptop, however the other PC does not have the same parameters and that is why my company required me to test and find a way to allow Nvidia Pass Through on the laptop so that those spare machines can be re-used...

 

[MilenKo]

Had another go this evening trying to create a VM with Linux since I've read that it is best to start with a Linux system and once it is fully operational to test with windows, which has caused some issues with the virtualisation.

As soon as I've created a new VM with Ubuntu 20.04.03 LTS and set UEFI Secure boot during installation to allow proprietary drivers to get installed, I got the Nvidia drivers properly installed, and control panel finally has appeared.

The only issue I have now is that I was not able to create a VM without a default display driver and I had to pass through a VirtIO-GPU (virtio) and my Nvidia as second. Because of that, I am feeling like the 3D benchmark is not evaluating my Nvidia but the VirtIO GPU and that is why the gl2score was barely 250-270 which is tremendously low for such a powerful GPU.

At least I was able to see an image on my external screen and the proprietary driver of Nvidia 510 (tested) got recognized on its own and installed with no issues.

Not sure if the Windows VM would not have something set in the UEFI Secure Boot which could be preventing the system from installing the driver, but that will be a matter of another investigation later on. If someone has an idea how can I set Display to NONE and be able to boot over the PCI Pass Through PCI-E GPU it would be great. So far any other attempts from the options did not allow me to boot...

 

[dcsapak]

my guess for windows is that since it's a mobile gpu, the drivers will expect a certain hw configuration that simply is not there in the virtualized case (just a guess though)

as for:

The only issue I have now is that I was not able to create a VM without a default display driver and I had to pass through a VirtIO-GPU (virtio) and my Nvidia as second.

what did happen when you set vga to none ?

what *should* happen is that you only get a display on the real hardware not via the integrated vnc console

 

[MilenKo]

Hello @dcsapak
Thank you very much for your prompt reply. The issue is that as soon as I set the display driver to NONE, the VM cannot boot and I see the VNC failing to connect.

Do you think this could be caused by an incapability of the GPU, as the system is a laptop?

As I mentioned, it sort of started working under Linux (at least properly recognized my NVIDIA in the proprietary drivers and installed successfully 510). I was able to go in the control panel, and I was seeing the proper GPU identification, however it was lagging a lot and that is why I assumed that the signal is passed not through the GPU but VirtIO...