Solved Why won't a RAID card work?

S

scilek

I know this is not a FreeBSD issue, but I asked the same question on stackoverflow.com and for some reason, some people down-voted it, and to prevent the risk of being blocked from asking another question, I had to remove it. I hope the good FreeBSD people will help me identify, and hopefully solve, the issue.

I bought a 2nd hand Dell PERC H310, for which I already had a two sets of cables. I tested it on an Intel Core i9 system (Asus Pro WS X299 Sage II) and it worked. But when I installed it on an old GigaByte GA-EP45-DS3R MB (Intel Core 2 Duo), it beeped nine times, indicating a RAM error.

Is there anything I can do to make it work on that MB?
 
Debugging suggestion: When you boot it on the GigaByte motherboard, can you get into the card's BIOS screen? That might give you some messages.

Other than that, my first suggestion would be to check power supply. The Dell PERC cards are typically rebranded LSI cards, and those can be very power hungry. Along the same lines: Perhaps the PCI slot in the GigaByte motherboard is defective, try moving to different slots.
 
ralphbsz said:
Debugging suggestion: When you boot it on the GigaByte motherboard, can you get into the card's BIOS screen? That might give you some messages.
Click to expand...
Nothing appears on the screen, only 9 consecutive beeps, which, according to the manual, indicates memory failure. The machine boots up normally when I pull it out.

ralphbsz said:
Other than that, my first suggestion would be to check power supply. The Dell PERC cards are typically rebranded LSI cards, and those can be very power hungry.
Click to expand...
There is no power input on the card. It works fine without any power input on another, more modern system.

ralphbsz said:
Along the same lines: Perhaps the PCI slot in the GigaByte motherboard is defective, try moving to different slots.
Click to expand...
I tried both the PCI-E x16 and PCI-E x8 slots. Both work fine when I install the graphics card.
 
I had hard time with two Lenovo SAS cards. SAS3008 but branded.
They really just gave me fits until I swapped them into another board. Flashed away.
So EFI versus Legacy BIOS.
Maybe lack of EFI is the problem on Core2Duo.
You are trying to use too old of a board for that card.
 
scilek said:
There is no power input on the card. It works fine without any power input on another, more modern system.
Click to expand...
Here's my theory behind it: The Dell/LSI card uses so much power, there isn't enough left for the motherboard, leading to memory failure. You would have to try using a stronger power supply.

I just looked up something else: The PERC 310 is a PCIe 2.0 card, and some of the PCIe slots on the Gigabyte motherboard are also PCIe 2. So they should be compatible.
 
Phishfry said:
I had hard time with two Lenovo SAS cards. SAS3008 but branded.
They really just gave me fits until I swapped them into another board. Flashed away.
So EFI versus Legacy BIOS.
Maybe lack of EFI is the problem on Core2Duo.
You are trying to use too old of a board for that card.
Click to expand...
Yes, right. Now that you mention the "legacy vs EFI" conundrum, it makes all the sense to me. The card must somehow get involved in the booting process to allow the user to setup RAID, and if that is meant to be done on an EFI BIOS only, of course it is not going to work with legacy BIOS.
 
Well you can flash legacy OptionROM to it. With LSI tools.
Good chance its missing on OEM card.
Its one of the files with the firmware.
 
Phishfry said:
Well you can flash legacy OptionROM to it. With LSI tools.
Good chance its missing on OEM card.
Its one of the files with the firmware.
Click to expand...

A quick search on Google yielded nothing useful. I see LSI is not Broadcom, which means there is probably no support for their cards, as is usually the case when one corporation swallows another.
 
ondra_knezour said:
What about this SMbus problem/solution?

And no doubt about Broadcom product support being a hell, but something can be found anyway.
Click to expand...

It worked! I remember seeing that post years ago and had found it very interesting at the time. I could never imagine someday I would have to do the same to get my own card working!

Code: 
mfi0: <Drake Skinny> port 0x2100-0x21ff mem 0xf0640000-0xf0643fff,0xf0600000-0xf063ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
mfi0: Using MSI
mfi0: Megaraid SAS driver Ver 4.23
mfi0: 38994 (697473241s/0x0020/info) - Shutdown command received from host
mfi0: 38995 (boot + 3s/0x0020/info) - Firmware initialization started (PCI ID 0073/1000/1f78/1028)
mfi0: 38996 (boot + 3s/0x0020/info) - Firmware version 2.120.14-2762
mfi0: 38997 (boot + 5s/0x0020/info) - Package version 20.12.2-0001
mfi0: 38998 (boot + 5s/0x0020/info) - Board Revision A00
mfi0: 38999 (697488602s/0x0020/info) - Time established as 02/06/22 18:50:02; (30 seconds since power on)
mfi0: 39000 (697488625s/0x0020/info) - Host driver is loaded and operational

That is the card, right?
 
Correct, MageRAID is the name of the LSI/Broadcom/Avago (and HP/Dell/IBM/...) cards.

That is a very bizarre problem, and a McGyver fix. But if it works ... great.
 
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