Question Compatibility of RX6600 and Gigabyte H81M-DS2

[wabznasm]

Trying to find a possible upgrade for son's computer which is quite old spec. We're not currently able to upgrade the mobo and up to now he's been on a GeForce GTX1050Ti and Intel i3-5xxx.

Today we've upgraded to a Intel i7-4790 (max supported by the mobo) and bumped up the power supply at add an 8pin power lead for a higher spec video card, but the PowerColor RX6600 8GB 2F Fighter is refusing to boot. It works fine if we swap back to the old GTX1050Ti.

In speccing this up, I was aware we would have potential bottlenecks, and that we were running a PCIe4.0 card in a PCIe2.0 slot but understood that this was doable, with limitations. The card was unboxed and has probably been used for coin mining so there is a chance the card is faulty.

Am I expecting too much in thinking this would be compatible? Or am I right that this should work and the card may be at fault? And I appreciate I'm wringing the neck of some old kit here.

https://www.powercolor.com/product?id=1623918331#spe

GA-H81M-DS2 (rev. 1.0) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ultimate platform fo...

www.gigabyte.com

Thanks.

 

[CountMike]

Trying to find a possible upgrade for son's computer which is quite old spec. We're not currently able to upgrade the mobo and up to now he's been on a GeForce GTX1050Ti and Intel i3-5xxx.

Today we've upgraded to a Intel i7-4790 (max supported by the mobo) and bumped up the power supply at add an 8pin power lead for a higher spec video card, but the PowerColor RX6600 8GB 2F Fighter is refusing to boot. It works fine if we swap back to the old GTX1050Ti.

In speccing this up, I was aware we would have potential bottlenecks, and that we were running a PCIe4.0 card in a PCIe2.0 slot but understood that this was doable, with limitations. The card was unboxed and has probably been used for coin mining so there is a chance the card is faulty.

Am I expecting too much in thinking this would be compatible? Or am I right that this should work and the card may be at fault? And I appreciate I'm wringing the neck of some old kit here.

https://www.powercolor.com/product?id=1623918331#spe

GA-H81M-DS2 (rev. 1.0) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ultimate platform fo...

www.gigabyte.com

Thanks.

Is MB BIOS in UEFI mode ? What is your PSU and does it have PCIe power cables connected ? 1059 didn't need any but Rx 6600 does and needs more power.

 

[wabznasm]

Is MB BIOS in UEFI mode ? What is your PSU and does it have PCIe power cables connected ? 1059 didn't need any but Rx 6600 does and needs more power.

We passed BIOS and failed partway through OS boot (Lubuntu 20.04, which has made me think about driver issues and I need to explore this more). PSU was replaced today and is a Cooler Master Bronze 750W with the 8PIN lead connected to the RX6600.

Also just found a couple of posts elsewhere that suggests PCIe mismatch will affect performance but should be usable., and specifically mentions this mobo/GPU combination. So I don't think I've bought something absolutely incompatible but hope to get confirmation of that here.

I need to check for driver issues. It may be as simple as that...

 

[CountMike]

We passed BIOS and failed partway through OS boot (Lubuntu, which has made me think about driver issues and I need to explore this more). PSU was replaced today and is a Cooler Master Bronze 750W with the 8PIN lead connected to the RX6600.

Also just found a couple of posts elsewhere that suggests PCIe mismatch will affect performance but should be usable., and specifically mentions this mobo/GPU combination. So I don't think I've bought somethign absolutely incompatible but hope top get confirmation of that here.

I need to check for driver issues. It may be as simple as that...

Yes, that much of PCIe will visibly affect performance but should still be compatible. If you are past BIOS where you have picture, drivers are certainly next step. Linux has pretty low acceptance for AMD products and not as good drivers. AMD is not pushing enough for AMD GPUs so these are only Linux drivers for that GPU
https://www.amd.com/en/support/grap...ies/amd-radeon-6600-series/amd-radeon-rx-6600
Windows shouldn't have such problem.

 

[wabznasm]

Yes, that much of PCIe will visibly affect performance but should still be compatible

This is really helpful and gets me to a stage where I can look properly at other stuff.

If you are past BIOS where you have picture, drivers are certainly next step. Linux has pretty low acceptance for AMD products and not as good drivers. AMD is not pushing enough for AMD GPUs so these are only Linux drivers for that GPU
https://www.amd.com/en/support/grap...ies/amd-radeon-6600-series/amd-radeon-rx-6600

I maybe glossed over this too quickly when I was researching. I got to the point where I was seeing the amdgpu is now an inbuilt kernel module and kind-of took that to be good enough. On further reading just now, it looks like it might not be. But that should be something I can get around and is better than dealing with a faulty or mismatched video card.

Much appreciated thanks.

 

[CountMike]

This is really helpful and gets me to a stage where I can look properly at other stuff.



I maybe glossed over this too quickly when I was researching. I got to the point where I was seeing the amdgpu is now an inbuilt kernel module and kind-of took that to be good enough. On further reading just now, it looks like it might not be. But that should be something I can get around and is better than dealing with a faulty video card.

Much appreciated thanks.

I had same GPU running fine on Linux Mint and yes, it's supported in kernel mode.

 

[wabznasm]

I had same GPU running fine on Linux Mint and yes, it's supported in kernel mode.

Version please?

Currently seeing that AMD drivers got much better around 2021-2022 so if it's just a case of upgrading Lubuntu to current to get the newer kernels, that's doable.

 

[CountMike]

Version please?

Currently seeing that AMD drivers got much better around 2021-2022 so if it's just a case of upgrading Lubuntu to current to get the newer kernels, that's doable.

Linux mint 21.2 Cinnamon was last one I run in dual BOOT with W10/11. Still have one as Live on a USB with tools.Others tried as Live or in VM lately. Tiny11 2311 x64. Tails-amd64-5.17.1 and Zorin-OS-16.3-Core-64-bit

 

[wabznasm]

Linux mint 21.2 Cinnamon was last one I run in dual BOOT with W10/11. Still have one as Live on a USB with tools.Others tried as Live or in VM lately. Tiny11 2311 x64. Tails-amd64-5.17.1 and Zorin-OS-16.3-Core-64-bit

2021 seems to be the time when loads of questions about AMD6X cards suddenly stopped being asked. There may be a connection there!

I need to setup a live USB based on current and see if that boots as partial proof that may be a driver issue or similar. Just digging through failed syslog boots to see what turned up in there too.

Thanks for the info

 

[wabznasm]

Just to tidy this one up.

Ended up upgrading the kernel to HWE which is 5.15 for 20.04 and that provided the RX6600 drivers. Removed the xorg.conf created by nvidia-settings and rebooted. After spending an hour figuring out that the network adapter had been renamed from enp3s0 to enp5s0 which totally confused Network Manager, everything is essentially working!

I say essentially because the cheap DMI-D to DisplayPort cable seems to be causing an intermittent flickering on one monitor, and I want to try running without vsync and haven't figured out a way to do that with AMDGPU yet.

Thanks for you help on this