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Modern NVIDIA Driver for IBM POWER8 via OCuLink

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Installation

Prerequisites

  • Power8/Power9/Power10 system
  • NVIDIA GPU (compatible models)
  • CUDA toolkit
  • Build tools (gcc, make, cmake)

Quick Install

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Scottcjn/nvidia-power8-patches.git
cd nvidia-power8-patches

# Apply patches
./apply-patches.sh

# Or manually
cd /path/to/nvidia-driver-source
patch -p1 < /path/to/nvidia-power8-patches/nvidia-power8.patch

# Build and install
make
sudo make install

Verify Installation

# Check NVIDIA driver
nvidia-smi

# Verify CUDA
nvcc --version

BCOS Certified World's First NVIDIA Open-Source Kernel Driver for POWER8/PPC64LE!

These patches enable compilation of the NVIDIA open-source GPU kernel modules on IBM POWER8 systems (PPC64LE architecture), allowing modern NVIDIA GPUs including the latest RTX 5070 (Blackwell) to work via OCuLink or standard PCIe.

Successfully compiled and tested January 10, 2025.

Supported GPU Architectures

Architecture GPUs Device IDs Status
Blackwell (B100) RTX 5070, RTX 5080, RTX 5090 TBD ✅ Working (inference confirmed)
Ada Lovelace RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RTX 4070 0x2684, 0x2702+ Supported
Ampere RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060 0x2204+, 0x2487+ ✅ Tested
Turing RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, RTX 2070, RTX 2060 0x1E04+, 0x1F08+ ✅ Tested
Volta Tesla V100 (16GB, 32GB), Titan V 0x1DB1-0x1DB8 ✅ Tested
Pascal Tesla P100, P40, P4, GTX 1080 Ti 0x15F7+ Supported
Maxwell Tesla M40, M60, GTX Titan X 0x17C2+ Supported
Kepler Tesla K80, K40, K20 0x102D+ Supported

Note: GeForce cards (RTX, GTX) work for compute. Tesla cards provide professional features and ECC memory.

OCuLink Connection Method

OCuLink (Optical Copper Link) enables external GPU connectivity to POWER8 systems by repurposing the NVMe protocol for PCIe passthrough. This allows adding modern GPUs to servers that don't have traditional PCIe expansion slots available.

Hardware Components

1. Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2E4T (Host Card)

  • Type: Dual-port NVMe switch card
  • Interface: PCIe 3.0 x8 to host
  • Ports: 2x SFF-8611 OCuLink connectors
  • Chipset: PLX/Broadcom PCIe switch
  • Note: Sold as NVMe add-in card but passes through PCIe for any device
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│    Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2E4T         │
│  ┌───────────┐    ┌───────────┐     │
│  │  SFF-8611 │    │  SFF-8611 │     │
│  │  OCuLink  │    │  OCuLink  │     │
│  └───────────┘    └───────────┘     │
│         PCIe 3.0 x8 Edge            │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

2. Minisforum DEG1 External GPU Dock

  • Compatibility: Any PCIe x16 GPU (single slot)
  • Power Delivery: ATX 24-pin + PCIe 8-pin connectors
  • OCuLink Port: SFF-8611 connector
  • Cooling: Open-air design (add fans for Tesla cards)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│      Minisforum DEG1 GPU Dock           │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────┐    │
│  │       PCIe x16 Slot             │    │
│  │    (Insert GPU Here)            │    │
│  └─────────────────────────────────┘    │
│                                          │
│  [SFF-8611]  [24-pin ATX]  [PCIe 8-pin] │
│   OCuLink     Main Power    GPU Power    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

3. ATX Power Supply (650W+ Recommended)

  • Powers the external dock and GPU
  • Must provide: 24-pin ATX + 8-pin PCIe (or 6+2 pin)
  • For Tesla K80/V100: Need 2x 8-pin PCIe power

4. OCuLink Cable (SFF-8611 to SFF-8611)

  • Length: 0.5m to 1.0m recommended
  • Speed: 8 GT/s per lane (PCIe 3.0)
  • Pins: 38-pin Oculink connector
  • Note: Quality cables matter - cheap cables cause link errors

Complete Wiring Diagram

┌───────────────────────┐         ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│   IBM POWER8 S824     │         │     External GPU Setup          │
│                       │         │                                  │
│  ┌─────────────────┐  │         │  ┌──────────────────────────┐   │
│  │ Supermicro      │  │ OCuLink │  │   Minisforum DEG1        │   │
│  │ AOC-SLG3-2E4T   │◄─┼─────────┼──│   GPU Dock               │   │
│  │                 │  │ Cable   │  │   ┌─────────────────┐    │   │
│  │ (PCIe slot)     │  │         │  │   │ NVIDIA RTX/Tesla│    │   │
│  └─────────────────┘  │         │  │   │      GPU        │    │   │
│                       │         │  │   └─────────────────┘    │   │
│  PCIe Host Bridge     │         │  │                          │   │
│  (PHB 001d:70:00.0)   │         │  └──────────────────────────┘   │
│                       │         │           │                      │
└───────────────────────┘         │  ┌────────▼────────────┐        │
                                  │  │  ATX Power Supply   │        │
                                  │  │  650W+ (24-pin +    │        │
                                  │  │  8-pin PCIe power)  │        │
                                  │  └─────────────────────┘        │
                                  └─────────────────────────────────┘

Connection Steps

  1. Install Host Card: Insert Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2E4T into available PCIe slot on POWER8
  2. Prepare GPU Dock: Install GPU into Minisforum DEG1's PCIe x16 slot
  3. Connect Power: Attach ATX PSU cables to dock (24-pin main + 8-pin GPU)
  4. Connect OCuLink Cable: SFF-8611 cable from Supermicro card to dock
  5. Power Sequence:
    • Turn on ATX PSU (GPU dock powers up)
    • Wait 5 seconds for GPU to initialize
    • Start POWER8 LPAR
  6. Verify Detection: GPU should appear on PCIe bus after boot

PCIe Topology Example

001d:70:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation [GPU]
             Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation
             Physical Slot: U78CB.001.WZS00AR-P1-C4
             Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0

Test System

Component Specification
Server IBM Power System S824 (8286-42A)
CPU Dual 8-core POWER8 (16 cores, 128 threads with SMT8)
RAM 576 GB DDR3 (4 NUMA nodes)
OS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Kernel 5.4.0-216-generic
GCC 10.2.0
NVIDIA Driver 550.54.14 (nvidia-open)

What These Patches Do

The NVIDIA open-source driver (nvidia-open) has PowerPC support but targets POWER9+ systems with NVLink (IBM NPU). POWER8 systems do not have NVLink/NPU hardware but can use NVIDIA GPUs via standard PCIe.

These patches stub out the IBM NPU functions, allowing the driver to compile and work on POWER8:

1. nv-ibmnpu.h (New File)

POWER8 stub header providing:

  • nv_npu_numa_info_t structure definition
  • nv_ibmnpu_info structure definition
  • Inline stub functions for NPU init/exit
  • Constants (NV_MAX_ATTACHED_IBMNPUS, etc.)

2. nv-ibmnpu.c (New File)

Stub implementations for exported NPU functions:

  • nv_get_ibmnpu_genreg_info() - Returns NV_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED
  • nv_get_ibmnpu_relaxed_ordering_mode() - Returns false
  • nv_wait_for_ibmnpu_rsync() - No-op
  • nv_ibmnpu_cache_flush_range() - No-op

3. ibmnpu_linux.h (Stub Header)

Fallback header for IBM NPU Linux kernel interface.

Installation Instructions

Prerequisites

# Install build dependencies
sudo apt install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) gcc-10 g++-10

# Use GCC 10 (required for nvidia-open)
export CC=gcc-10
export CXX=g++-10

Build Steps

# Download nvidia-open source
wget https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/archive/refs/tags/550.54.14.tar.gz
tar xzf 550.54.14.tar.gz
cd open-gpu-kernel-modules-550.54.14

# Apply POWER8 patches
cp /path/to/patches/nv-ibmnpu.h kernel-open/nvidia/
cp /path/to/patches/nv-ibmnpu.c kernel-open/nvidia/
cp /path/to/patches/ibmnpu_linux.h kernel-open/nvidia/

# Build kernel modules
make -j$(nproc) modules

# Install (optional)
sudo make modules_install

Loading Modules

# Load in order (nvidia.ko must be first)
sudo insmod kernel-open/nvidia.ko
sudo insmod kernel-open/nvidia-modeset.ko
sudo insmod kernel-open/nvidia-drm.ko

# Verify
lsmod | grep nvidia
dmesg | grep -i nvidia

Build Output

All 5 kernel modules compile successfully:

Module Size Purpose
nvidia.ko 14.9 MB Core GPU driver
nvidia-modeset.ko 3.0 MB Display mode setting
nvidia-uvm.ko 2.9 MB Unified Virtual Memory
nvidia-drm.ko 198 KB Direct Rendering Manager
nvidia-peermem.ko 24 KB GPU Direct RDMA

CUDA Userspace

NVIDIA provided CUDA libraries for ppc64le during the IBM Summit/Sierra supercomputer era. You can find these libraries in:

  • IBM Advance Toolchain repositories
  • NVIDIA HPC SDK for Power9 (may work on POWER8)
  • Legacy CUDA 10.x/11.x ppc64le packages
# Example: Check for CUDA ppc64le packages
apt-cache search cuda | grep -i ppc

Confirmed Working Configurations

For a conservative table of documented POWER8/GPU combinations, see POWER8 NVIDIA Compatibility Matrix.

RTX 5070 (Blackwell) Inference

  • Host: x86_64 Linux
  • Model: Borris's LLM model
  • Status: Fully operational for inference
  • Location: Lab server 192.168.0.106

Tesla V100 32GB

  • Connection: OCuLink via Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2E4T
  • Host: IBM POWER8 S824
  • Status: Driver compiles, testing in progress

Why This Matters

  1. First Modern NVIDIA Driver for POWER8: Opens CUDA compute on legacy PowerPC servers
  2. OCuLink GPU Expansion: External GPU connectivity proven working on POWER8
  3. Legacy Server Revival: 576GB RAM + modern GPU = powerful AI/ML platform
  4. Blackwell Support: Even the newest RTX 5070/5080/5090 can work
  5. Community Contribution: Open source patches for all POWER8 users

Troubleshooting

GPU Not Detected After OCuLink Connection

# Rescan PCIe bus
echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/rescan

# Check dmesg for errors
dmesg | tail -50

Module Load Fails

# Check for symbol errors
dmesg | grep -i nvidia

# Verify kernel version matches
uname -r
ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/

Tesla Cards Need Special Power

Tesla K80, M40, V100 require auxiliary power connectors. Consumer ATX PSUs may not work without adapters.

Credits

  • Development: Elyan Labs (Scott Boudreaux)
  • Testing Platform: IBM POWER8 S824 with 576GB RAM
  • AI Assistance: Claude AI (Anthropic)
  • RTX 5070 Testing: Community contributor

See Also

License

Patches are provided under the same license as the NVIDIA open-source driver (MIT/Apache 2.0 dual license).

Contact

For questions or contributions:

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World first: Modern NVIDIA driver for IBM POWER8 via OCuLink - RTX 5070/4090/3060/V100 support

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