Driver for graphics card

Feature Request
,
1

Hello QNAP Team & Community,

I would like to submit a feature request that is relevant for many compact NAS setups:

Background / Benefit

Many QNAP NAS devices (e.g., TS-473A) have two PCIe slots that should ideally be used together, for example:

  • GPU for transcoding/VM/container +
  • QM2 (NVMe cache/storage) or 10GbE

In practice, this often fails due to dual-slot GPUs, as the second slot is mechanically blocked. A single-slot low-profile RTX 3050 would be ideal here.

Specific Case

  • Card: Yeston GeForce RTX 3050 OC Low Profile (Single-Slot)
  • Mechanically perfect (single-slot, low-profile), slot 2 remains free for QM2
  • Problem: No driver support / not recognized (probably due to missing PCI-ID/whitelist in the NVIDIA GPU driver package).

Request

Please QNAP:

  1. Add driver/compatibility support for this single-slot low-profile RTX 3050 (at least PCI-ID recognition),
  2. or publish clear criteria so users can validate which single-slot cards work with the QNAP NVIDIA GPU driver.

Evidence/Logs

I can provide all relevant information (PCI-IDs, lspci, dmesg, driver logs, slot allocation, photos).

Thank you for considering this – it would be a real added value for compact NAS builds.

2

Even on larger NAS units like my TS-873A (yours but 4 more drive bays) that I would not call “compact”, the dual-slot GPUs still take both slots. It’s a real pain and you can only put the GPU in the top slot as the lower slot is not long enough. It has part of the metal housing blocking the edge of the GPU card.

Now, that said, I found the GPU to really be of questionable value. Yes, you can transcode video more quickly. But these days, I don’t find much of a need to transcode video. Everything I have plays either 1080p or 4K video and I generally don’t like to watch SD content, so how much value is there in transcoding? Sure you could use the card for a VM or Container, but in that mode it is dedicated and you can’t use it for anything outside that VM/Container.

And don’t get me started on HD Desk Station. If QNAP had “good” apps for that, then maybe - but the apps are just awful and about 10 to 15 years too old…

3

My problem is: I have the Yeston graphics card that only takes up 1 slot :+1:. However, it is not supported by the driver. At least it is recognized.

4

Yeah and with QNAP, you pretty much have to have a supported device…

5

Could you please clarify how you confirmed that the card is “not supported by the driver” yet “still recognized by the system”?

To help us accurately diagnose the situation, could you please provide relevant screenshots?

Thanks!

6

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Hello, with pleasure.

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7

So if this card is recognized like you show, I believe it is working. Generally you will see very little activity on the GPU. You would need to be transcoding video to see if there’s activity being done on it.

If you connect an HDMI cable to the output - what do you see on a display?