LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes


Recommended Posts

Your assuming no one here uses a LSI controller for the ESXi host; it was an FYI.

 

...didn't try to say that... but you are right...post edited.

With the increasing number of ESXi builds, I was just trying to help others decide.

I installed a patch recently and it actually broke more things that I'd rather have kept working.

Link to comment

Absolutely, that's why I kept it simply as an FYI.

No strings attached, not saying anyone does or does not need it  ;) just something I was informed by VMware this morning. Could apply to someone's situation or at the very least have it in the back of their head should the issue arise. Maybe they have experienced it and were not aware VMware was working on a fix...

 

I personally am on 5.0 not 5.1 in production.

 

Its hard to be in hundred places all the time. I personally appreciate when someone posts something of interest, I believe u recently posted about a CEC gadget, I appreciated it. I'm not buy one at the moment but am keeping it in mind should the need arise (have it bookmarked).

 

Link to comment

A big thanks to madburg for the method to do this.

 

I successfully flashed my M1015 to SAS2008 P11 IT mode. Not sure if people are still doing this, but I've attached SBR file for reference.

 

I'm using an ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M motherboard that has EFI, so I had to use a slightly different method for steps 5 & 6, details in this thread. Thanks goes to newbie_dude!

 

I also upgraded my card from P11 to P15 as described in this post. Thanks goes to binhex!

SBRM1015.BIN.zip

Link to comment

I'm running P11 on both of my cards. Are there any benefits for upgrading to P15? I got my cards preflashed with P11 from eBay and after reading threads and threads with different procedures, troubles and so forth I'm a bit reluctant to upgrade. If it ain't broke, don't fix. ;)

Link to comment

There seem to be a number of posts suggesting that the UEFI flasher has to be used on Supermicro X9SCM motherboards in order to flash the LSI controllers.

 

I have just successfully updated my SAS2008 controller, installed in my X9SCM-iiF motherboard, using the Linux flasher under unRAID/Slackware, exactly as I posted up near the beginning of this thread.  My motherboard, obviously, came with a V2 BIOS - however, I believe that the Linux flasher would work equally well with a V1 BIOS

Link to comment

Thanks, cane you explain UEFI she'll ? How I can change to that ?

 

// Peter

 

When booting, enter The BIOS and select the UEFI shell as a boot device.  From there, you can flash the M1015. 

 

Ogi

 

See here for more detail on using UEFI shell to overcome the "ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL. Exiting program" message.

Link to comment

Hello everyone,

 

Been doing some extensive searching the past few days for a Dell SAS 5/iR Raid Card that runs a LSISAS1068 Chip NOT a 1068E which is what this thread has. I have found a few places that show how to flash using the LSI firmware but I can not for the life of them find the firmware. All the links in all the site i have found are bad (Linking to LSI Old download site). This card was pulled from a clients server of mine because it took a dump. Had a replacement ordered and got them on their merry way. Right before i was about to toss the card i realized the capacitors on it were bad. Just two of them. I replaced them and volia! good as new. I play on using it to run a Raid 0 with my two Samsung HD204UI. Then plan on buying a 4TB to use as my backup drive (Right now i keep one samsung in the PC and another in my safe for when i make a backup of it)

 

I did see something in post 453 about using the bios from a  LSI SAS 3081X-R? I want to keep the raid function. it currently has the stock firmware and Bios of 00.06.50.00.06.06.00.02. I have tired updating using the dell firmware but it just doesn't see the card at all. Don't know if its because it must be in a dell server or not. The reason why i want to flash though is because from what i have read flashing with a LSI Firmware and Bios will allow me to create a raid 10 which yes i can't right now but will in the future. It doesn't matter to me that this is a Sata II 3Gbps card because these are strickly storage drives only and i only boot my desktop up to store new files to it really.

 

Don't stress your self out on the issue. No need to do any extensive research on this. If all i can get is a Raid 0 for now so be it not gonna kill me at this moment. Just wanted to see if anyone has some knowledge on it to lend me a hand.

Link to comment

Hello folks. Google brought me to your doorstep, hat in hand hoping for some help, and I got it. Thanx!

 

I have a Dell H200 that I tried to re-flash into a generic 9211-8i with firmware P15, but the process failed resulting in a card that sas2flash couldn't find. I think my error was attempting to use the latest and greatest firmware and BIOS. In any case, the P7 installer I got off of this board rescued my card and I want to thank you all for hosting the file.

 

It appears that the special sauce is the P7 installer and it's willingness to upload firmware and BIOS that don't match the vendor code, which appears to have been removed form later versions. Is my tired brain's analysis correct? (It's 0615 and I've been up all night monkeying around with the new server I'm building myself.)

 

Now I just need to checkout the SAS2Flash reference guide and see if there is a way to rename my controller from "PERC H200A" to something else.

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

Link to comment

Your welcome, glad to hear that keeping all the versions helped someone out.

 

I do not believe that can be changed. As I am not aware of any public tool that has access to that area to make such a modification. I have to assume u are merely trying to do that for cosmetic's?

Link to comment

All of my attempts to flash my Dell Perc H310 with an LSI IT firmware thus far have failed...but I am not ready to give up.

 

I was wondering if:

 

1.  Could the people in-the-know tell me if this card is even able to be flashed with an LSI IT firmware?  The spec sheet can be found here although it really doesn't offer much info other than it is an LSISAS2008 chipset.

 

http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/Documents/dell-perc-h310-spec-sheet.pdf

 

2.  If the card is able to be flashed, which package (zip) should I use.

 

I did find one thread that seems to indicate that these cards have the 9211 version of the chip:  http://openindiana.org/pipermail/openindiana-discuss/2013-January/011190.html

 

If there are any utilities that you would like me to run on the card itself, just let me know and I will do that.

 

TIA!

 

John

Link to comment

I was finally able to flash the Dell H310 with an IT Firmware!  :)

 

I basically follwed the guide here:  http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1045376

 

But the first thing I had to do was wipe the card completely otherwise sas2flsh would not recognize it as an LSI card.  So, I did:

 

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

 

and then flashed it with the firmware found here:  http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-r610?DriverId=6M53D&FileId=2731103519&DriverName=Dell%206Gbps%20SAS%20HBA%2C%20v.07.03.05.00%2C%20A08&urlProductCode=False  Funny that Dell actually provides this firmware but in the same breath will tell you that the H310 cannot be flashed with an IT firmware.

 

sas2flsh -o -f 6gbpsas.fw

 

Then flash with the mptsas2.rom.

 

sas2flsh -o -b mptsas2.rom

 

Lastly, add the SAS Address back to teh card:

 

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx

 

That's it.  I now have an H310 that I can passthrough in ESXi.  :)

 

John

Link to comment

I am having problems using 2 IBM m1015 cards which I have succesfully flashed with P15 IT-firmware when inserted  in my new ASrock Z77 Extreme4-m motherboard.

 

I am only able to get 1 card at a time working in the "top" (designated PCIE1 ) PCIe-x16  slot.

If I insert a second card in the other PCIe-x16 (designated PCIE3)  slot no connected drives will appear on the second controller

(the ones connected to the first controller card appear anyhow ).

 

When having both of these PCIe-x16 slots populated they will be running in 2 *  PCIe-x8 mode according to the motherboard manual.

 

I have also tried switching the cards around to make sure that my problems wasn't because of one faulty card.

 

With just one single card inserted, it has to be placed in the topmost PCIe-x16 slot (designated PCIE1 ).

 

It kind of seems that any of the cards when inserted into the middle PCIe-x16 slot (designated PCIE3) does not get recognized.

 

When I flashed the 2 IBM  m1015 cards with the P15 IT-firmware I did this in another old PC with non-UEFI motherbord BIOS and everything seemed to go well during the flashing process.

 

 

BUT: I flashed both of the cards with the OPTION ROM included.  Should I not have done this?  Should I have flashed only 1 card with the Option ROM included?

Or neither?

 

Can I now reflash and "get rid of" the Option ROM simply by using?: sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin

 

 

UPDATE: I am following up on my own post above. After updating the motherboard BIOS to the latest version (1.50) both controller cards presented themselves and the connected drives and all seems to work fine.  :)

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Hi all,

 

Maybe somebody has seen this before?

 

I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode, P15.  I hooked up a new WD Red 3TB drive to it.  It sees it as 3TB and adds it to the array with no problems.  I can write to the drive normally.  However, as soon as I stop the array, it thinks my drive is 2TB and will not start the array because it thinks I am replacing my 3tb drive with a smaller 2tb drive.

 

I rebuilt the array and tried adding the drive again and the same thing happened.  So I hooked the drive up to my windows machine, ran WD diagnostics on it, and it came back with no errors.

 

Has anybody seen this before or have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Link to comment

Hi all,

 

Maybe somebody has seen this before?

 

I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode, P15.  I hooked up a new WD Red 3TB drive to it.  It sees it as 3TB and adds it to the array with no problems.  I can write to the drive normally.  However, as soon as I stop the array, it thinks my drive is 2TB and will not start the array because it thinks I am replacing my 3tb drive with a smaller 2tb drive.

 

I rebuilt the array and tried adding the drive again and the same thing happened.  So I hooked the drive up to my windows machine, ran WD diagnostics on it, and it came back with no errors.

 

Has anybody seen this before or have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

...never ever have seen this behaviour.

What unRAID version are you using?...what mobo?

 

Maybe posting this in the general support (or unRAID RC5) section will draw more attention to it.

I don't think this is related to the M1015 and its FW.

Link to comment

Lastly, add the SAS Address back to teh card:

 

sas2flsh -o -sasadd 500605bxxxxxxxxx

 

That's it.  I now have an H310 that I can passthrough in ESXi.  :)

 

John

 

Hi John

 

Where did you find the SAS addy for the H310? The other cards have a sticker but the H310 does not? don't want to wipe the card until I have the address..

 

Thanks

 

Mondo

Link to comment

Hi all,

 

Maybe somebody has seen this before?

 

I have a M1015 flashed to IT mode, P15.  I hooked up a new WD Red 3TB drive to it.  It sees it as 3TB and adds it to the array with no problems.  I can write to the drive normally.  However, as soon as I stop the array, it thinks my drive is 2TB and will not start the array because it thinks I am replacing my 3tb drive with a smaller 2tb drive.

 

I rebuilt the array and tried adding the drive again and the same thing happened.  So I hooked the drive up to my windows machine, ran WD diagnostics on it, and it came back with no errors.

 

Has anybody seen this before or have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

...never ever have seen this behaviour.

What unRAID version are you using?...what mobo?

 

Maybe posting this in the general support (or unRAID RC5) section will draw more attention to it.

I don't think this is related to the M1015 and its FW.

 

Ok, I tried more testing and it is definitely something related to the M1015 card.  Here's what I did:

 

  • Removed one of my 2TB drives (connected to the Motherboard) from the array and added the 3TB red (and cleared/formatted it).
  • After parity check and multiple restarts, it works fine.
  • Took the 2TB drive that was working and connected it to my M1015.
  • It showed up fine and using initconfig, I added it to the array and did a parity check.  It completed successfully.
  • I stopped the array and then unraid successfully saw the disc as 2TB BUT thought it was previously a 3TB disc in that position and wouldn't let me start it back up!  So I rebooted the machine and now I have a red light next to the drive and it won't start with the array.

 

 

I'm using 'unRAID Server Plus version: 5.0-rc1'.  My Motherboard is a MSI MS-7613.  It was taken from an HP Computer.  Everything has worked fine for a year until now.

 

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Link to comment

I'm using 'unRAID Server Plus version: 5.0-rc1'.  My Motherboard is a MSI MS-7613.  It was taken from an HP Computer.  Everything has worked fine for a year until now.

 

Again, I don't think this is M1015 related.

My feeling is this is a problem with the 5rc1 version and 3TB support and you are seeing it

while you are adding the card to your system at the same time...hence your conclusion.

 

I'd post this in the rc q&A forum section.

 

What does a "cat /proc/partitions" show?...are all disks there...with correct sizes?

If so, it is definitely not a FW problem. (you can telnet into your unRAID and run this command from the terminal)

 

Link to comment

Guys need your help! :(

 

I have spent the past two days trying everything I can think of to get my M1015 into 9211-8i IR mode.

 

I can successfully flash it into 9211-8i IT mode, but when I try to flash it in IR mode, I get the "Chip is in RESET state" error, and SAS2FLASH can no longer continue. I have also tried flashing the IR firmware, without adding the BIOS (mptsas2.rom) to see if that helped, but same problem.

 

I plan to use it as a datastore for my VMware ESXI 5.1U1 box. Originally because of the megaraid_sas driver hanging in ESXI when the card was in native 9240-8i / M1015 mode, I decided to try the 9211-8i cross flashing instead.

 

I have ended up reverting the card back to native M1015 mode using the latest Megaraid 9240-8i drivers. I really need to get this card working in RAID 0 as a datastore under ESXI. That is my primary goal. If I can get it working in ESXI under native M1015 mode, then I am a happy camper. I won't be very happy if I am stuck with an HBA and 8 separate ports (IT mode) :(

 

I have tried about 6 different mobo's and most of them have worked for IT mode. I have also booted up using a EFI Shell, and still the same problem persists when trying to flash to IR Mode.

 

 

So tonight I am going to try a few BIOS tweaks to see if I can get this pesky card working as a M1015/9240-8i under ESXI, and avoid the megaraid_sas driver hanging issue.

 

BTW, the card is detected as SAS2008(B2). Not sure if the B2 is of any significance.

 

Geez, it is frustrating.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

loiphin.

 

Link to comment

Here is what I can share. Hopefully you have a copy of the SAS address via the tools used here or a sticker on the card. I don't know if it's possible via UEFI, so if u have bios MB the create a DOS bootable USB stick. Copy the sas2fash to it and run it to wipe the sas card clean. From there you will be able to get back to IR mode. If u don't know the command I will post it later as I am on the road right now.

Link to comment

Yes, I tried the following under a bootable DOS USB stick, without any luck:

 

Wiped the card clean, as per the regular instructions.

Tried to flash to IR... fail

Flash to IT.. works

Cross flash from IT to IR --- Fail

Tried older version of IR firmware -- Fail

Tried IR with or without BIOS (mptsas2.rom) --- Fail

Tried IT with or without BIOS(mptsas2.rom) -- Works

Reverted back to old IBM Bios and then try to reflash to IR --- Fail

Tried most of the above in a UEFI Shell, and same results.

 

Tried across six motherboards. Five render same results. Last one, P9X79 WS gives PAL error in DOS (to be expected)

 

:(

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.