I am having an issue/hiccup with one of my SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards.

 

When the system boots and 2 of these AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards start everything is fine until it gets to "initializing raid component". This runs then times out. I have to hit escape, it tries again and does the same thing. I hit escape again and the system then boots and all the drives that are attached to both cards work fine.

 

I need to find out why this is stopping and requiring user intervention each time the server boots. I have attached a screen shot of the issue.

 

My configuration:

 

Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCL-F-O

Processor: Intel i3 2100

Memory: Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC

SAS Cards 2X Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

OS: Unraid 4.7

Case/Backplane: NORCO RPC-4224

 

I have contacted supermicro support and they told me to RMA it which I very hesitant to do as its in production at this point. Anyone have any other suggestions? It works fine once I get past the stops but its annoying because I have to babysit it while it boots.

 

 

Go into the Supermicro card's BIOS (hit ctrl-M when you see the drive's serial numbers on screen).  Disable INT13 for both drives.  You can look around and also see if there's any RAID options that can be disabled, but I don't think there are.

 

Another option is to try flashing the BIOS on the cards.  Some users have had success by downgrading to the BIOS ending in .15 (which has no RAID functionality).

Go into the Supermicro card's BIOS (hit ctrl-M when you see the drive's serial numbers on screen).  Disable INT13 for both drives.  You can look around and also see if there's any RAID options that can be disabled, but I don't think there are.

 

Another option is to try flashing the BIOS on the cards.  Some users have had success by downgrading to the BIOS ending in .15 (which has no RAID functionality).

 

Thanks!

 

I will try this when my parity check has completed. Any risk in disabling the INT13 and it causing Unraid to freak out? Just concerned it will present the drives differently to Unraid when it boots with these options changed. Also, is the .21 BIOS not good? That was the stock that came on the cards.

 

Thanks again. I thought someone might have some more knowledge than what they were telling me.

Disabling int13 shouldn't affect unraid, it just stops the card from putting one of the hdds as bootable.

 

The .21 firmware is larger and requires more option rom to boot so on some motherboards it will hang and not boot at all. My gut feeling is that you should be fine with the .21 firmware but if you search for my post on my motherboard and supermicro card it will have all the info for the .15 firmware.

 

Josh

I got into the bios and disabled INT13 on both drives. I then booted back up and unraid worked fine. That seem to get rid of the issue but I will have to see what it does after I do a fresh reboot.

 

I tried to change both controllers to JBOD but I dont see an option anywhere in the bios to change that. Also the serial numbers are very differnet for being the excact same model. I got one from buy.com and one from newegg and the exact same time.

 

Screen shot 1 is my first controller which is in JBOD mode and doesn't have the hang up

 

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Screen shot 2 is my second controller which is in RAID mode and I cant change it. Both adapters show the same bios version. Any idea on how I can change the mode to JBOD?? Very frustrating and supermicro's documentation is horrid.

 

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Anything under the 'RAID' menu on the second screenshot?  The first one looks fine in JBOD mode.  That is interesting that the serial numbers are so different.

Just a list of the drive connected to that card and an option to create an array with those disks.

 

Very confusing. Its almost like supermicro switched things up and I got an older revision of the card and a newer revision of the card.

 

If I boot it again and dont see this hang I am almost content to leave it as I dont want to have unraid missing those drives when it boots again.

I just looked at mine. Both are PAxxxxxxxx. I'd look at the sticker on that MRVL one.

 

who knows?  maybe it is some sort of prototype or even a bad/custom bios flash. it might showing the marvel ID instead of serial number? other option is it could be some sort of OEM card?

 

I assume it is working for now.

Mine seems to freeze as well, but if I walk away and leave them for 15 minutes my unRaid system finally boots all the way.  I have no idea what takes it so freaking long but it is the SASLPs that it seems to wait on.

It is normal for the SASLP cards to take more time to boot as they are populated with more drives.  However, 15 minutes is definitely excessive.  5 minutes is somewhat more normal, though still a bit on the long side.  Maybe send an email to Supermicro support and see what they say.  Perhaps they'll send you a new card.

I find it strange that 2 people with the exact same setup have the same issue.

 

I am waiting to see what you guys come up with before i buy mine. I have the same motherboard sitting in my shopping cart on the egg. I am in no rush though. Otherwise, i can always buy the X8 flavor.

Honestly I just consider it the price of having an array with 22 hard drives.  I don't boot unless I REALLY have to

Honestly I just consider it the price of having an array with 22 hard drives.  I don't boot unless I REALLY have to

 

Its not the wait time that annoys me its the forced intervention to skip passed it 2 separate times.

 

I did contact supermicro the first day it happened and their solution after one email was to RMA it...... Yay... 

Did you look at your spin up options? you dont have it at anything silly like 8 pools at 32 seconds each?

Nope. I can do that after this last disk is done rebuilding.

 

I checked both boxes I got. Both have the PAXXXXXX serial number on them. One has the serial number that matches the first card and the other box has another PAXXXXXX serial on it.

 

I sent another email to supermicro to ask them to explain what that other card is and if there is some screw up. I dont want to RMA the card in unless its defective.

 

Now I wished I would paid attention to which box came from what vendor. That will learn me.

 

I will let you know what they say.

 

Update: They are requiring me to RMA it as they do not know why its showing up in a RAID mode. They are cross shipping it so I wont have to take this card out until I get my new one. I am just very hesitant to replace the card and then have Unraid freak out on boot up if it sees it as a different card/different layout and blow my drives away.

Just screenshot your assigned drives so when you replace the controller you can reassign your drives in the correct order.

It is good to hear they are taking care of you.

+1 to the love of supermicro.

 

Most consumer levels vendors would not cross ship and make you wait weeks if not months.

 

Just to make sure I went ahead and powered down my system. Moved all the disks on that card off to other slots/cards and then powered it back up.

 

I had taken a screen shot of my device assignments before I powered down so all I had to do was reassign each disk to the correct disk number and then it let me start my array back up with a valid parity.

 

WHS would of had a stroke and died on me if I did that 

 

Just one more reason I love Unraid!

Final update:

 

I replaced the card today with a new one and the issue is gone. Both serial numbers match the same structure and both are in JBOD mode.

 

I moved 4 drives back over to this controller and it does not hang waiting for a RAID component.

 

 

Hope that the problem is truly gone as the it's an intermittent one.  I have a fully populated 4224, and had to shuffle some disks around to decrease the problem. 

 

Is the firmware still .21?

 

Final update:

 

I replaced the card today with a new one and the issue is gone. Both serial numbers match the same structure and both are in JBOD mode.

 

I moved 4 drives back over to this controller and it does not hang waiting for a RAID component.

 

 

Yes. I did not change the firmware. The only change I made was to disable the int13 option or whatever its called in the bios of the new card.