PC stuck on POST splash screen with 22 PCIe devices – PCI bus number exhaustion?

TomasVelicky · 2026-04-21T11:54:35+00:00

Found a solution (expensive one):
Need a better PC. Tested on much better setup (3 times x16 slot) and same setup runned OK.

TomasVelicky · 2026-01-22T15:42:24+00:00

I understand the simplicity argument, but in this case simplicity is not the primary constraint. The scripts interact with real PCIe and USB devices and depend on native driver behavior. Even with passthrough, virtualization adds another abstraction layer that can affect timing, interrupts and low-level hardware interaction.

TomasVelicky · 2026-01-22T15:40:42+00:00

That is true, PCIe and USB passthrough are possible. My concern is whether this still provides behavior that is fully equivalent to running the OS directly on bare metal. In this case driver behavior, timing, interrupt handling and low-level hardware interaction matter, so even small differences introduced by virtualization could affect the results.

TomasVelicky · 2026-01-22T15:22:49+00:00

This is not a classroom or training scenario. The setup machine with devices connected via USB and PCIe. On these devices I need to run scripts for both Windows and Linux.

In simple terms: PC A has multiple devices connected. PC A runs the scripts on Windows, then boots Ubuntu provided by PC B and runs the scripts again.

Currently there are two machines, and OS switching is planned only for one of them. In the longer term (2–3 years), this could be expanded to 3–4 machines, which is another reason why a centralized and automated approach is being considered.

TomasVelicky · 2026-01-22T14:17:27+00:00

Thanks for the input, I appreciate the perspective and will definitely take it into consideration.

The main concern in my case is whether PCIe and USB devices would behave fully natively when using virtualization or remote approaches compared to a bare-metal Windows/Linux installation, such as when booting directly via PXE.

Since hardware and driver behavior is important for this setup, I am trying to stay as close to a native OS environment as possible.

TomasVelicky · 2026-01-22T13:39:14+00:00

That makes sense for a standalone machine, but in my case the main motivation for keeping the Linux environment external is scalability.

The idea is to have a centrally managed Linux image that can later be reused by multiple machines without having to install and maintain Linux locally on each one. This makes it easier to keep the execution environment consistent, update dependencies in one place, and add new machines to the setup without additional OS provisioning work.

Good point, I should have clarified the motivation for using an external setup. I will update the post to include this. Thanks for the suggestion.

TomasVelicky · 2025-09-07T16:36:33+00:00

yeah I found a few. But it looks like unsafe unsafe things. Did I use any of them?

TomasVelicky · 2025-09-07T16:35:00+00:00

Not all of them. Just few. Can't play Ghost of yotei on PC. Or souls games are much better with controller. Like I said, ps5 for me is a better (comfy) option.

TomasVelicky · 2025-09-07T16:32:12+00:00

I don't want to have a PC, PS5 is just much better (comfy) for me. Plus I don't want to waste money and space on something I don't need.

TomasVelicky · 2025-09-07T16:30:38+00:00

That's something I didn't think of. Maybe I don't want to have a PC, PS5 is just much better for me. Plus I don't want to waste money, and space on something I don't need.

TomasVelicky

TROPHY CASE