Proxmox VE Fails to Boot with Intel 13th Gen Hybrid CPU - P and E cores Enabled

[paulpaul]

Greetings to the community, I have a limiting problem with Proxmox. It's not earth shattering but I'd like to fix it if possible.
Has anyone successfully run Proxmox with 13th gen Intel hybrid architecture and E-cores enabled?
Are there any known workarounds besides disabling E-cores?
Is this a known issue being tracked for future releases?

Note: I understand this will require a support subscription for official support, but I'm hoping the community might have insights or similar experiences to share.

My sincere thanks for any pointers - I'd really like some E cores

Here's what I *would* log as bug report:
System Configuration

CPU: Intel 13th Gen Core i7 13620H
RAM: 32GB
Proxmox-ve: 8.3.0 (running kernel: 6.8.12-4-pve)

Issue Description
Proxmox VE fails to boot when E-cores are enabled in BIOS. The same hardware successfully runs standard Debian 12 with all cores (P and E) enabled and functioning properly. The issue only occurs after installing Proxmox VE with its custom kernel.

Observed Behavior

With E-cores enabled:

- System begins boot process
- Displays "loading linux 6.8.12-4-pve"
- Displays "loading initial ramdisk"
- System immediately powers off.
- No logs are generated due to early boot failure

With E-cores disabled in BIOS:

System boots and operates normally
All P-cores are available for VM allocation
System is stable but with reduced total core count

Verification Steps

Fresh installation of Debian 12:

System boots and operates normally
All cores (P and E) are available and functional, verified core availability through lscpu output

After Proxmox kernel installation:

System fails to boot with E-cores enabled
Boot succeeds only after disabling E-cores in BIOS

Impact

Unable to utilize E-cores for low-priority VMs
Reduced total core count available for VM allocation
Increased risk of resource contention due to fewer available cores

 

[leesteken]

Proxmox does not have a problem with E-cores. Maybe it's a hardware issue (as 13th Gen might degrade too quickly due to automatic motherboard overvolting) or try updating the BIOS.

 

[paulpaul]

Thanks Leesteken,
I would accept that other than that a standard Debian kernel boots and runs without issue.
I will try to update the BIOS if I can - but the other issue is that this is a super cheap "Gaming PC" I bought new for £300 so the general hardware may not be up to it.

 

[leesteken]

I would accept that other than that a standard Debian kernel boots and runs without issue.

Proxmox uses a kernel based on Ubuntu instead of Debian (but it uses Debian for user-space). Maybe test with the Ubuntu installer (without install) and run some work-load to stress the CPU.

 

[paulpaul]

Oh - now I didn't know that - the install guide I followed, when the initial Proxmox ISO install failed, directed me to Debian 12.
Thank you - I will take a look at that. Ubuntu is 6.8 where Deb is 6.1. May take a little time as the server is headless so I need to find some hardware and a place to work.