Hello!

I have repurposed my workstation hardware into a server for VMs and homelab testing - I have a few features that are not immediately present that I suspect from research may be available. Is anyone able to assist with the following;

-PCIe port Bifurcation -- To allow splitting gen3 16x slots into x4/x4/x4/x4 or x8/x4/x4 or x8/x8 with a riser card
--Thinking of adding Thunderbolt or a GPU for vGPU experimentation (if this board can do it..)

-SR-IOV -- Can this be enabled on the motherboard BIOS? I have read VT-d is a pre-requisite and some have managed to enable this on other x79 boards..

Lastly, a heads up for folks who use this board in the future-
-Mellanox ConnectX-3 SFP+ PCIe Gen3 card (CX311A on 2.42.5000 fw) - This card is 100% not picked up by the BIOS but works in other machines. System browser does not see it at all.

System hardware;
Asrock x79 Extreme6 - P3.10 bios (latest)
Ivy Bridge - Xeon 2667 v2 (3.3ghz @ 4ghz OC)
96gb Samsung DDR3 1600 ECC

Expansion slots starting from CPU downward;
(PCIe)-Mellanox CX311A SFP+ 10gbE card (latest firmware 2.42.5000 - Flexboot ROM disabled) (NOT DETECTED by board) - This will likely be swapped for an Intel XL710 quad SFP+ card since we cannot get it to pickup.
(PCIe)-WiFi card
(PCI)-Nvidia TNT2 for basic video out
(PCIe)-PERC H730 raid card
-8x 4tb HDD 7200rpm NAS - RAID6 - Bulk storage
(PCIe)-Areca ARC-1210 RAID6 card
-4x 3tb HDD 5900rpm NAS - RAID6 - Archive
(System Board)
-4x 1tb EVO 850 SSD in RAID0 live data, differential backups run daily

Any assistance greatly appreciated. Ideally I would like to bifurcate the 16 in to two x8 slots and run a bigger GPU in the x8 slot on the bottom but if I can split any of them I would be happy.

Edit by Fernando: Thread title shortened

Start reading:

[GUIDE] Adding Bifurcation Support to ASUS X79 UEFI BIOS

[Guide] - How to Bifurcate a PCI-E slot

For SR-IOV... u wont have such luck... and u use to many pcie slots/lanes, my opinion only:

Zitat von deridiot im Beitrag #1

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Hello!

I have repurposed my workstation hardware into a server for VMs and homelab testing - I have a few features that are not immediately present that I suspect from research may be available. Is anyone able to assist with the following;

-PCIe port Bifurcation -- To allow splitting gen3 16x slots into x4/x4/x4/x4 or x8/x4/x4 or x8/x8 with a riser card
--Thinking of adding Thunderbolt or a GPU for vGPU experimentation (if this board can do it..)

-SR-IOV -- Can this be enabled on the motherboard BIOS? I have read VT-d is a pre-requisite and some have managed to enable this on other x79 boards..

Lastly, a heads up for folks who use this board in the future-
-Mellanox ConnectX-3 SFP+ PCIe Gen3 card (CX311A on 2.42.5000 fw) - This card is 100% not picked up by the BIOS but works in other machines. System browser does not see it at all.

System hardware;
Asrock x79 Extreme6 - P3.10 bios (latest)
Ivy Bridge - Xeon 2667 v2 (3.3ghz @ 4ghz OC)
96gb Samsung DDR3 1600 ECC

Expansion slots starting from CPU downward;
(PCIe)-Mellanox CX311A SFP+ 10gbE card (latest firmware 2.42.5000 - Flexboot ROM disabled) (NOT DETECTED by board) - This will likely be swapped for an Intel XL710 quad SFP+ card since we cannot get it to pickup.
(PCIe)-WiFi card
(PCI)-Nvidia TNT2 for basic video out
(PCIe)-PERC H730 raid card
-8x 4tb HDD 7200rpm NAS - RAID6 - Bulk storage
(PCIe)-Areca ARC-1210 RAID6 card
-4x 3tb HDD 5900rpm NAS - RAID6 - Archive
(System Board)
-4x 1tb EVO 850 SSD in RAID0 live data, differential backups run daily

Any assistance greatly appreciated. Ideally I would like to bifurcate the 16 in to two x8 slots and run a bigger GPU in the x8 slot on the bottom but if I can split any of them I would be happy.

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