: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell WS — no POST, no display on GPU or iGPU (4090 worked, MSI Z790)

Gaming and Visualization Technologies General Topics & Other SDKs GPU - Hardware
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Hello,

I’m upgrading from an RTX 4090 to an RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition and cannot get the system to POST with the new card installed. Looking for guidance on whether this is a power, BIOS, RAM, or compatibility issue.

Symptom

With the Pro 6000 installed:

  • No video signal on any GPU DisplayPort/HDMI port
  • No video signal on motherboard HDMI/DP (Intel iGPU) either
  • System appears to fail before or during early POST — I cannot reliably enter BIOS
  • Removing the Pro 6000 and rebooting → motherboard display works normally again

With the 4090 in the same slot, same cables, same board: everything worked (display + compute under Ubuntu).

This suggests a firmware/hardware initialization problem rather than a Linux driver issue, but I haven’t been able to confirm because I can’t boot far enough to run lspci or nvidia-smi with the card installed.

Hardware

Component Details
GPU (new) NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition
GPU (old, worked) NVIDIA RTX 4090
Motherboard MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI (MS-7E06)
CPU Intel i9-13900K (iGPU: UHD 770)
System RAM 64 GB DDR5 (~62.5 GiB reported by OS)
BIOS A.30 (2022-11-24) — not yet updated to latest 7E06vAJ
PSU [model / wattage]
OS Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, kernel 6.8.0-111-generic
Secure Boot Disabled

Power wiring

  • Using the power adapter that shipped with the Pro 6000 (4× PCIe 8-pin → 1× 12V-2×6)
  • PSU-side 8-pin cables are our existing modular cables (same ones used successfully with the 4090)
  • [Confirm: all 4 adapter inputs connected? separate PSU ports vs daisy-chain?]
  • Not using a native PSU 12VHPWR/12V-2×6 cable directly to the GPU

I read a similar no-POST case on this forum (thread 372649, “RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition : Not Detected”) where the included adapter fixed boot — but that user was using native PSU 12V-2×6 cables before switching to the adapter. We are already using the adapter.

Software state (with card removed, booting on iGPU)

$ lspci | grep -i nvidia

(no NVIDIA device — expected, card removed)

$ dpkg -l | grep nvidia-driver

nvidia-driver-580 (closed/proprietary) + linux-modules-nvidia-580

$ nvidia-smi

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver.

I understand Blackwell may require the open kernel module (nvidia-driver-*-open), but I haven’t been able to test that yet because the machine won’t POST with the card installed.

What we’ve tried

  • Reseat GPU fully in top PCIe x16 slot
  • Monitor on motherboard ports (HDMI/DP) — still black with Pro 6000 installed
  • Remove Pro 6000 → iGPU display returns
  • [BIOS changes attempted? Primary Display / ReBAR / Above 4G / Gen4?]
  • BIOS update to 7E06vAJ — not done yet
  • RAM upgrade beyond 64 GB — not done yet

I’m aware of the NVIDIA RTX PRO Blackwell Quick Start Guide requirement that system memory should be ≥ GPU memory (96 GB VRAM on this card; we have 64 GB system RAM). Also saw forum thread 342479 (“Will RTX Pro 6000 blackwell prevent boot if sysmem < graphicsmem?”) with the same symptom but no confirmed resolution.

Questions

  1. Is 64 GB system RAM a known cause of complete POST failure (no BIOS, no iGPU output) on Pro 6000 WS, given 96 GB VRAM?

  2. Could reusing 4090 PSU 8-pin cables (with the included 4→1 adapter) cause total POST failure even if fans spin? Is 4 separate PSU 8-pin runs mandatory for POST, not just for load?

  3. Recommended BIOS settings for MSI Z790 + Pro 6000 when using Intel iGPU for initial setup:

    • Primary Display = IGFX?
    • iGPU Multi-Monitor = Enabled?
    • Above 4G Decoding = Enabled?
    • Resizable BAR = Disabled or Enabled?

  4. Minimum BIOS version for Pro 6000 Blackwell on consumer Z790 boards?

  5. Any board-level blocklist or known incompatibility with MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI?

  6. For Workstation Edition (not Server): is Display Mode Selector required for basic display output, or only for compute/MIG mode?

What would help us most

  • Confirmation of whether POST can hang entirely (including iGPU) due to power cable spec vs RAM vs BAR allocation
  • A checklist order for MSI Z790 + i9-13900K + Pro 6000 WS
  • Whether we should prioritize 128 GB RAM, BIOS flash, or different PSU cabling first

Happy to provide lspci -vvv, BIOS screenshots, or a bug report once we can boot with the card installed.

Thank you!

2

Hi there @JP.Sun and welcome to the NVIDIA developer forums.

I am sorry to hear you are running into issues.

The general recommendation is always to update the BIOS to the latest verison.
Also keep in mind, that GPU&RAM can take several minutes on first boot before POST.

Verification of this GPU happens with system RAM at least the same size as VRAM, usually 128GB.
So yes, it is highly recommended to make sure that is met.

Power should be both sufficient and correctly connected the way you describe it. You could verify that the 4-in-1 adapter of the Pro 6000 works with the 4090 to rule out any HW defect, but I doubt that is the issue.

Beyond that we don’t have specific guidance for MB/CPU/GPU configurations I am afraid.