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Contabo Atom C2550 Jellyfin transcoding—CPU suicide or possible?

VPS Hosting by bellaauc 18 replies 1.1K views
bellaauc

Member OP

3-2-1 Believer

13 #1

So I got this Atom C2550 box from Contabo for €4/month and thought "how hard can 4K→1080p be?"

Hard. Very hard.

CPU0:  +82.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
cpu MHz         : 998.512

Thermal throttling within 90 seconds of starting any HEVC stream. The poor thing sounds like a jet engine and delivers 8fps.

Before anyone asks—yes I tested my restore. Yes I have 3-2-1 backups. No that won't bring my CPU back from the dead.

Options I'm considering:

  • VAAPI passthrough (does Contabo even offer this?)
  • Pre-transcode everything with HandBrake overnight
  • Accept my fate and direct-stream only

Has anyone actually made this work on bottom-tier hardware? Or is this just CPU suicide with extra steps?

3-2-1 or you're already dead
PascalOvid

Member

#2

What do you expect from Atom C2550? The server is not made for transcoding. Look at dedicated server with iGPU, you can do VAAPI passthrough real nice. Why suffer with VPS when for little more money you get real hardware? Check OVHcloud or RackNerd, they have cheap dedicated with i3 and UHD P630. What is your budget, friend?

256 cores for a blog. why not?
brusselsdzire1

Member

#3
bellaauc said:
Thermal throttling within 90 seconds

This raises serious concerns under EU consumer protection frameworks. Article 13 of the Directive on consumer rights regarding digital content—though superseded—established precedent for performance claims. Your provider must disclose thermal limitations in pre-contractual information per GDPR Article 5(1)(a) transparency principle.

Have you requested their data processing agreement? I would document every throttling incident. The right to data portability (GDPR Article 20) may entitle you to performance logs.

Contabo's terms likely violate unfair commercial practices directive if they market "streaming capable" without thermal caveats.

steveipw

Member

#4
PascalOvid said:
For little more money you get real hardware

For that money you get:

  • Contabo Atom C2550: €48/year, passmark 1032
  • OVHcloud I3-8100 dedicated: €35/month, passmark 8115, UHD 630
  • Used auction server E3-1245 v5: $80 + $25 colo, P530

ZFS mirror your media. Pre-transcode with ffmpeg -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20. Store on 4TB HGST drives in RAID10. The Atom is fine for direct stream, not compute.

VAAPI passthrough needs KVM with PCI passthrough enabled. Most cheap VPS use LXC or broken KVM. Check first.

zfs send | zfs receive. repeat.
AS

Member

#5

Which kernel and what jellyfin version

olespete

Member

Trust No One

#6

Has anyone actually got VAAPI passthrough working on Contabo though

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried
bellaauc

Member OP

3-2-1 Believer

#7
Astro10 said:
Which kernel and what jellyfin version

5.15.0-105-generic, Jellyfin 10.8.13. Not the latest I know.

3-2-1 or you're already dead
AS

Member

#8

Try jellyfin 10.9, they improved tone mapping CPU fallback. But on Atom still bad.

PascalOvid

Member

#9
olespete said:
Has anyone actually got VAAPI passthrough working on Contabo though

No. I asked support in 2022, they said "no GPU passthrough on VPS, only VDS." VDS starts at €13/month. Still no guarantee of iGPU, could be Xeon E5 without.

256 cores for a blog. why not?
bellaauc

Member OP

3-2-1 Believer

#10
PascalOvid said:
VDS starts at €13

So my €4 plan is LXC or broken KVM, thermal throttling, AND no VAAPI. Contabo really said "we have streaming capable in the product description" though. I should have read steveipw's passmark list before clicking buy.

3-2-1 or you're already dead

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