No display output on Supermicro motherboards with IPMI version 3.80

On systems with Supermicro mainboards of the X10 series, it may happen that no display output occurs on older operating systems or the system no longer starts correctly. In some cases this behavior can be traced back to an update of the IPMI firmware to version 3.80. This article shows which operating systems are affected and how the problem can be solved.

Affected operating systems

For the following operating system versions we were able to observe the behavior described above.

Windows Server 2012 R2

• Screen remains black after installation of VGA/Aspeed driver

Debian 8

• Desktop interfaces (e.g. Gnome, LXDE) cannot be started at system startup

• Error messages during startup

BUG:soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 23s!
INFO:rcu_sched self-detected stall on CPU { 0}

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

• During installation, the system stops with a blinking cursor on a black background.

• Display remains black after system startup

Solution/workaround

We are already in contact with the motherboard manufacturer Supermicro and are working on a final solution of the problem with a newer firmware version.

Until then, there remains a possibility to fix the problem by downgrading the IPMI firmware to version 3.77.

If you are affected by this problem, please carry out a downgrade. Under certain circumstances a new installation may be necessary.

You can download the IPMI firmware version 3.77 for Supermicro X10 motherboards with this link from the download area of Thomas-Krenn.

Author: Sebastian Strassner Sebastian Strassner works in the Technical Support department at Thomas-Krenn. He takes care of typical support tasks such as setting up test systems or supporting customers with technical problems. He has specialized in Linux in particular. In his spare time Sebastian enjoys working with wood, flying a few rounds with his quadrocopter or also enjoys working with computers privately.