sil3114 PCI and FreeBSD 9.2

DaveQB

DaveQB

Hi all,

I have an older system I want to set up as a backup file server. I am running FreeBSD 9.2 off a USB thumbdrive. The mobo mainboard only has 2 SATA ports, so I need a SATA card to fit the disks required. I have tried 2 sil3114 PCI cards. Both with the below results:

On the boot up screen, the BTX Boot loader screen, all the disks show up as attached. But once into the OS, camcontrol devlist does not show the disks attached to the sil3114 PCI SATA card. I tried a VIA SATA card and it worked fine (work meaning showed the disks attached with camcontrol devlist).

I am pretty new to BSD but got over 10 years experience with Linux.

Thanks for any input on this matter.
 
Ahh thank you. I thought it might be a kernel module thing and the fact this is an old card.

I'll go try that.
Thanks!
 
I'm not entirely sure this exact model is supported but I've had several SATA cards based on a similar silXXX chipset and they all used siis(4).
 
SirDice said:
I'm not entirely sure this exact model is supported but I've had several SATA cards based on a similar silXXX chipset and they all used siis(4).
Click to expand...

Thanks. Booting up this old system now.

I did do some searching for sil3114 and FreeBSD and everyone seemed to have it working without issue. Didn't find reference to siis.
I'm sure it will work; seems like assumed knowledge.
 
siis(4) does not list the 3114. It is listed in ata(4).

The 3114 is not well-regarded. I would update to the latest firmware from the SI website, preferably a non-RAID version if they have one for that card.
 
I tried using an SII 2-port SATA card once, with FreeBSD 9.0. Didn't want to work. Instead of playing with kernel modules and fighting the card and its firmware, I grabbed another SATA card (this one with the VIA 6421 chip) from the pile, and that second card has worked excellently ever since. Interesting coincidence: I found the SII card two days ago, in the pile of spare cards, when looking for any spare mini-PCIe wireless cards. It had a sticker on it saying "doesn't work with FreeBSD", so I tossed it into the electronics recycling bin.
 
It can sometimes be somewhat of a hit and miss. I've had to try a few SATA cards before finding one that worked without problems. Looking through the man pages and looking for specific models helps. But you still might get some new variant of a chipset that isn't fully working. Luckily I've always been able to return the non-working cards.
 
Thanks guys.

How annoying. I have a number of of PCI SATA cards floating around the garage. Two of which are using this chipset. The others only have 2 SATA ports and I need 3, hence why I want to get one of these cards working.

This is disappointing. I might throw Debian on this system instead so save the hassle.
 
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