---
type: reference
title: PCIe Link and Atomics
description: "Link probing, the streaming-versus-compute ceiling arithmetic, and the atomics wall that decides multi-GPU collectives."
tags: [pcie, rccl, atomics, multi-gpu, bandwidth, amd, nvidia]
timestamp: 2026-10-05T00:00:00-07:00
---

# PCIe Link and Atomics

## 1. Degraded or just idle?

The trap: an idle GPU reports `LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s (downgraded)` — the
driver downshifts to Gen1 for power. That is not a fault and not the slot's
fault. Never conclude from an idle reading.

1. **Path ceiling from the kernel (cheapest, most decisive):**
   `sudo journalctl -k -b --no-pager | grep "available PCIe bandwidth"` →
   `pci 0000:c4:00.0: 63.012 Gb/s available PCIe bandwidth, limited by 16.0
   GT/s PCIe x4 link at 0000:00:03.1 (capable of 252.048 Gb/s with ... x16)`.
   The "limited by" device names the **bottleneck** (usually a root port) and
   its width — that is the number a swap could move; "capable of x16" is the
   endpoint's OWN capability, and the gap between them is the story.
   `dmesg` rotates; `journalctl -k -b` keeps this boot.
2. **Both sides separately:** `LnkCap`/`LnkSta`/`LnkCtl2` on endpoint AND root
   port. `LnkCtl2: Target Link Speed: 16GT/s` on both ends = the platform
   intends Gen4, so a Gen1 current speed is power management, not
   misconfiguration. A root port whose `LnkCap` width exceeds the trained
   width means the socket/adapter wires fewer lanes — **M.2 connectors are 4
   lanes by pinout; an M.2 riser can never deliver more.**
3. **Prove the link under load (the step people skip):** on NVIDIA sample NVML
   while the GPU works
   (`nvidia-smi --query-gpu=pcie.link.gen.current,pcie.link.gen.hostmax,pcie.link.width.current,pcie.link.width.max`):
   `gen.current` climbing 1 → `hostmax` = idle downshift, healthy; stuck below
   `hostmax` under load = real degradation; `width.current < width.max` under
   load = **physical lane limit** — no software touches it. On a busy
   production GPU this is a usage smoke test, not a benchmark — never stop a
   live service to read its link.
4. **Do not plan hardware from `dmidecode -t slot`** — consumer firmware
   labels Ethernet/SD controllers as "M.2 slots" and advertises slots in PCI
   domains that do not exist. Trust `lspci -nn | grep "PCI bridge"` and
   `lspci -tv` (empty root ports still enumerate; an absent port is absent).
5. **"Would moving the card help?"** Compare the bottleneck device from step 1
   with the target port's `LnkCap` width; two M.2 sockets = both x4 = a
   no-op. Clean `DevSta`/`CESta` with a low trained speed means "wired
   narrow", not "failing". Report ceiling, card capability, what the idle
   reading meant, and whether any physical change moves the number.

Gen4 usable payload after 128b/130b: **x4 7.877 GB/s, x8 15.75, x16 31.5**.

## 2. The engine shape decides whether the link matters at all

| engine shape | what crosses PCIe per token | link matters? |
|---|---|---|
| streams weights (expert LRU, paging) | the missed weights (~GB/token) | **yes — decisive** |
| computes offloaded weights in RAM (llama.cpp `-ot exps=CPU`) | activations only (~KB) | no; host RAM bandwidth decides |
| everything resident | nothing | no |

**Ceiling arithmetic:** `link time/token = active expert bytes / measured
H2D rate`; `ceiling = 1 / link_time × resident-fraction saved (LRU hits)`.
Compare against the compute-in-RAM path at host RAM bandwidth (256 GB/s
LPDDR5X on the Strix Halo — 128 GB LPDDR5x-8000 on a 256-bit bus,
[amd.com spec page](https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/ai-300-series/amd-ryzen-ai-max-plus-395.html)).
**If the link is >10x slower than the memory behind it (x4 is 31x here)
streaming loses by construction and no tuning rescues it; doubling the link
only doubles a losing number.**

Worked example: the Dankclaw Gen4 x4 run of 2026-09-16 — measured H2D/D2H
rates, the 3 MiB slab cost, and the streaming-vs-compute comparison it decided
— is recorded on  §The link, measured. Read it once and
apply the rule above: on that link the streaming design lost by 3–5x, and the
x8 ceiling would only have halved the loss.

## 3. Measure the link: two probes, same mechanics

Stop **all** production services first (fleet bench law) — the 3090's VRAM
may be nearly full, and the probe contends for the very link it measures.

**CUDA probe** (`pcie-link-test.cu`): sweep {3, 16, 64, 256 MiB, 1, 2 GiB}
with `cudaMalloc` + `cudaHostAlloc`, event-timed; per size measure sync H2D,
async H2D, D2H, one single transfer, and pageable H2D. `3 MiB` is the row
that matters for expert streaming; big sizes give the ceiling.

**HIP probe for RDNA4** (`pcie_bw.hip`) — the ROCm landmines each cost real
time, so encode them:

- `hipGetDeviceProperties` SEGFAULTS on some builds; use `hipGetDeviceCount`
  + `hipSetDevice` only. First line: `setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IONBF, 0);` — a
  segfaulting process loses block-buffered stdout and hides the crash point.
- Build with an explicit arch: `HIP_TARGETS=gfx1201 hipcc -O2
  --offload-arch=gfx1201 -o p p.hip`; compile with `| grep -E "error:"`
  never `| tail -N` (truncation hid a missing `#include <cstring>`).
- `hipMemset`/`hipDeviceSynchronize` are `[nodiscard]` — use or cast.
- Mount the whole `/dev/dri` into ROCm containers; individual `renderD*`
  nodes enumerate but fail context creation.
- `rocm-smi --showmetrics`: `pcie_link_width` is trustworthy, but
  `pcie_link_speed` reads the ASPM idle value and `pcie_bandwidth_acc/inst`
  are usually `N/A` on consumer cards — live traffic generally cannot be
  sampled.

```cuda
// pcie_bw.hip — sweep sizes, pinned vs pageable
#include <cstdio>
#include <cstring>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <hip/hip_runtime.h>
static double one(size_t bytes, bool pinned, int iters) {
    void *dev = NULL, *host = NULL;
    if (hipMalloc(&dev, bytes) != hipSuccess) return -1;
    if (pinned) { if (hipHostMalloc(&host, bytes, hipHostMallocDefault) != hipSuccess) return -1; }
    else        { host = malloc(bytes); }
    memset(host, 0x5a, bytes)
    hipEvent_t a, b; hipEventCreate(&a); hipEventCreate(&b)
    for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) hipMemcpy(dev, host, bytes, hipMemcpyHostToDevice)
    hipDeviceSynchronize()
    hipEventRecord(a, 0)
    for (int i = 0; i < iters; i++) hipMemcpy(dev, host, bytes, hipMemcpyHostToDevice)
    hipEventRecord(b, 0); hipEventSynchronize(b)
    float ms = 0; hipEventElapsedTime(&ms, a, b)
    double gb = (double)bytes * iters / (ms / 1000.0) / 1e9;
    if (!pinned) free(host); else hipHostFree(host)
    hipFree(dev); hipEventDestroy(a); hipEventDestroy(b)
    return gb;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IONBF, 0)
    if (hipSetDevice((argc > 1) ? atoi(argv[1]) : 0) != hipSuccess) return 1;
    size_t sz[] = {2459136UL, 3UL<<20, 16UL<<20, 64UL<<20, 256UL<<20, 1UL<<30};
    for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
        size_t b = sz[i];
        int iters = (b >= (1UL<<30)) ? 10 : (b >= (256UL<<20)) ? 20 : 100;
        printf("  %10.3f MiB | pinned %6.2f | pageable %6.2f\n",
               b/1048576.0, one(b,true,iters), one(b,false,iters))
    }
    return 0;
}
```

**Reading it:**

- **Engine-vs-link is the diagnosis, not the raw number:** compare
  `engine_effective_GB_s` to `link_GB_s` at the SAME transfer size. Engine at
  ~40 % of the link at the same granularity = the wire is not the problem and
  no hardware change will help.
- Achieved GB/s is itself the proof of the trained link state (6.7 GB/s only
  exists at Gen4 x4) — no separate under-load `LnkSta` sample needed.
- **pinned ≈ pageable ⇒ pinning is not a lever.** async ≈ sync ⇒ link-limited
  (the usual "pageable costs 2x" rule does not apply at this link).
- Small-transfer penalty (2.345 MiB: ~106 µs vs ~78 µs ideal, ~21 %) is
  per-transfer overhead — recoverable only by BATCHING transfers, not by a
  faster link. The engine-vs-wire version of that reading on Dankserver
  (bulk slab rate against the engine's effective gather rate, same
  granularity) is [[frank-archon]]'s tcclaviger-era record.
- Both GPUs symmetric ⇒ no cross-device rebalance is available; measure both.
- Don't quote a derived line from inside a probe without hand-checking it —
  a printf format/argument mismatch in one of these printed a nonsense
  ceiling. GiB→GB before dividing.

## 4. The PCIe-atomics wall (AMD multi-GPU collectives)

**Symptom:** multi-GPU AMD host fails TP/PP; the failure surfaces as
`hipLaunchKernel: hipErrorIllegalState` for `ncclDevKernel_*` — nothing in
vLLM/RCCL/PyTorch names atomics. Get the real message:

```bash
AMD_LOG_LEVEL=3 <the failing process>
# → "Pcie atomics not enabled, hostcall not supported" → "AQL dispatch failed!"
```

**Cause chain:** RCCL kernels carry a hidden hostcall-buffer parameter; ROCr
refuses to fill it without PCIe atomics, which it reads **once at driver
probe** (`rocclr/device/rocm/rocdevice.cpp` `checkAtomicSupport()` — no else,
no override). **No env var, module param, or sysfs toggle exists** —
`setpci -s <gpu> CAP_EXP+28.w=0440` (DCTL2 bit 6) changes nothing at runtime.

**Check the CHAIN, not the card:**

```bash
sudo lspci -vv -s <gpu> | grep -E "AtomicOpsCtl|LnkSta|LnkCap"  # want ReqEn+
lspci -tv                                                        # every hop
sudo lspci -vv -s <bridge> | grep AtomicOpsCap                   # want Routing+
```

`Routing-` is a read-only hardware capability. Typical AM5 layout: one x16
slot on CPU root ports (atomics fine), the rest behind the chipset (usually
not). Bandwidth for TP is small anyway: ~10 MB per token-step for a 27B at
batch 4 is a millisecond-scale figure at x4 — compute-bound, not
interconnect-bound (full derivation:  §Bandwidth).

**Probe matrix (bare 2-rank `torch.distributed`, one process per GPU, 25 s PG
timeout) — one probe answers several design questions:**

| Op | CPU-lane card | chipset card | Decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| `broadcast`/`all_reduce`/`barrier` | OK | FAIL | TP is dead |
| `send`/`recv` (P2P), in ISOLATION | hang | FAIL | **PP is dead too** — vLLM's PP handoff IS this primitive |

Test `send`/`recv` alone (a prior failed op leaves the group broken). Run the
probe from a REAL file (`torch.multiprocessing.spawn` re-executes it; piping
into `python3 -` fails with `FileNotFoundError: '/<stdin>'`). `world_size=1`
always succeeds — **one-card success proves nothing.**

**SAFETY — non-negotiable:** never run a GPU experiment beside a serving
unit: `sudo systemctl stop <svc> && sudo systemctl mask <svc>` first (mask,
never disable — disable deletes a relinked unit file), or use a host that
serves nobody. A hung AQL dispatch can wedge the GPU driver; a probe beside a
live service on 2026-09-16 preceded a hard host down (no ARP, no ICMP from
two subnets, power cycle required). Telling off from wedged afterwards: `ip
neigh show <ip>` from a peer — `FAILED`/`INCOMPLETE` = off/NIC dead; a wedged
kernel usually still answers ARP. Validate your own probe's naming before
reporting an outage (`gitea` vs `gitea-server`).

**Fixes, ranked:**

1. CPU-attached M.2 → PCIe x4 riser (~$30) — puts the card on the CPU root
   complex; x4 suffices for TP.
2. Board whose CPU x16 bifurcates x8/x8 (done 2026-09-20 on dankserver — the
   per-device chain census, including both endpoints reading `ReqEn+`, is
   's). Re-checked 2026-10-18 without root: both root
   ports report `current_link_width=8` at `32.0 GT/s`
   (`/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:01.{1,3}/current_link_width`), and the live
   engine states direct P2P between the cards.
3. llama.cpp `--split-mode layer` — no collectives at all (); costs the GGUF conversion plus paged attention /
   continuous batching / spec decode.
4. Independent TP=1 replicas + routing proxy — cards never share one model.

**Closed software routes (do not re-litigate):** vLLM's IPC custom allreduce
is gated by a CUDA-sm-keyed table (`{9.0, 10.0, 10.3, 10.7}`; ROCm reports
12.0 → off on RDNA4 by code limit) — the table is
`CUSTOM_ALL_REDUCE_MAX_SIZES` in
`vllm/distributed/device_communicators/all_reduce_utils.py`, whose keys on
today's `main` are exactly `"9.0"`, `"10.0"`, `"10.3"`, `"10.7"`
([source](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vllm-project/vllm/main/vllm/distributed/device_communicators/all_reduce_utils.py)
read 2026-10-18); nothing keys on a ROCm-reported `12.0`. — and patching it is
insufficient because TP init's `broadcast`/`barrier`/logits `all_gather` have
no non-RCCL path. A
fork wrapping `.all_reduce` (e.g. radiance `RADIANCE_USE_R4D_AR` one-shot
P2P, gloo for IPC-handle exchange) does not intercept
`PyNcclCommunicator.__init__`'s warmup allreduce. NCCL symmetric memory needs
`ncclDevComm*` (many builds ship the version string without the device API).
P/D disaggregation needs a KV connector AND coordination collectives. gloo is
CPU/TCP — unreachable for per-layer TP.

**Open, unverified:** rebuilding RCCL so kernels stop declaring a hostcall
buffer (`-mprintf-kind=buffered` is the usual claim) — counter-evidence: no
live `printf`/`assert` in RCCL device source. Test path: rebuild, dump a
kernel's declared args (`roc-obj-extract` + `llvm-readelf --notes`), look for
`hidden_hostcall_buffer`; if gone, retry the 2-rank probe (service stopped).

## Related

-  the layer-split path around the wall
- /  — measured history
- [[frank-archon]] — the gather economics of the retired tcclaviger vLLM era (2026-09-29 → 10-05)