LSI Controller FW updates IR/IT modes


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Unfortunately I realized that I continue to have a problem with my system, thought of being gone:

I still have to figure out what is causing a humongous number of UDMA_CRC errors, on a couple of my hard drives. Those alone can slow everything down. Besides my data is at risk as well. I had them before getting the controller, when I had the drives connected to the motherboard, but not too many - well.... in the hundreds.

Now that I moved all the HDDs to the controller, the number of UDMA_CRC errors (SMART report) jumped up 20 fold! The SMART report still says that the drive is healthy, and it may be, but I have to figure out where the errors come from, or replace the hard drives.

 

Since I've changed the cables connecting to the drive, my next suspects are  http://store.antec.com/P/hot-swap-module-for-df-85/0-761345-30757-4.aspx (where the HDD plugs into), or perhaps the interface on the drives themselves, or the power supply.

 

In my experience, by far the most likely cause of all CRC errors is the cables.  I'd concentrate most on them (besides it's the cheapest thing to fix!).  You say you changed the cables.  Were the replacements known to be high quality and good cables, tested on other drives?  I strongly recommend never skimping on SATA cables, especially since very good quality ones can be obtained so cheaply at MonoPrice.  Try swapping a suspect cable with one known to never cause errors, then see if the errors follow the cable.  Make sure the cables are not tightly tied together, especially tied with power cables.  They look very neat that way, but are more likely to suffer interference and crosstalk.  Check the connectors on both ends, and the connections on the drives and the ports on the card, make sure they are clean, no apparent dust or corrosion.  Make sure the power cables are well connected too, especially any power cable splitters.  If in doubt, try swapping suspect connections with known good ones, and test.

 

Another less likely possibility is the power supply.  Flaky power can cause drive interface issues.  I suppose overheating drives could too, but you would have mentioned that.

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I had to change the 1-1 cables used for the motherboard to sff-8087 to sata (1-4), when I installed the controller. The initial cables were the typical ones coming with the mb. The controller cables are reused (amphenol) pulled from a commercial server (trying to  save some money - but they look ok)

 

I just ordered one of this - awfully expensive! - http://www5.ncix.ca/products/?sku=888895585 to do some testing and see if this is the cause ...

 

 

 

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Strange problem.

You mentioned that you also had the CRC errors when your drives were connected to the mainboard.

When switching to the LSI controller you already changed the cabling - then it got worse.

You say you have those CRC errors on multiple drives...

There may be one or two defective cables but not multiple and after switching to a completely different

cable (set) it is highly unprobable to have the same issue on multiple cables/drives again.

 

Is there an electromagnetic emitter in the vicinity of your server?

Maybe your PSU is the source?

I would test another PSU next and after that, given the result is negative, test another

mainboard.

 

 

 

 

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on the first Page I found the package "LSI MegaRAID to SAS2008(P11)". But there is also a P14 in the Internet.

 

I Would like to flash the newest version on my M1015.  Which Version is the newest?

I have a MegaRaid SAS 9240-8i (which seems to be the same card as M1015 - reading other posts) flashed with P18 IT firmware for LSI SAS 9211-8i.  Downloaded firmware right from LSI support page. Getting to this stage has taken lots of trial and error, and I almost gave up on the card. Unraid is seeing it, loads the appropriate drivers, and doesn't complain. SMART info is also passed through, and available.

Now... life is not entirely rosy, as I have some SMART errors. They don't appear to be related to the controller, as I had similar ones before installing it in the system. I'm still researching the cause.

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Just another follow-up on this topic (so to not mislead anyone about my results)... I have abandoned for the moment the use 9240-8i, because I just couldn't figure out the errors I got when I brought the server up (SMART errors and parity errors).

 

I need more time and  a parallel environment to test this thoroughly, and I don't have either one. The addition of the controller was supposed to just work ("plug-and-play") and has been anything but that... my unraid server was belly-up for more than 1 month, and I've wasted lots of time in the process, and spent more money than I wanted, trying to make things work.

 

Worst of all I've accumulated all kind of SMART errors on my hard drives, and lost the parity synchronization. I have to spend now lots of time to re-validate, re-trust my data, and rebuild that parity drive, for redundancy.

 

So a word of caution for anyone playing with this stuff... If you already have data on your hard drives, and upgrade your server components, do not plug them in until you are 100% everything works as you intend to. Make sure your tests are relevant to the real environment. Otherwise you are sure to risk time, money and information - which may be irreplaceable.

 

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You mentioned, that you had problems with smart errors before you started "works" on the controller!

 

Nevertheless,

 

If you already have data on your hard drives, and upgrade your server components, do not plug them in until you are 100% everything works as you intend to.

 

should be clear to everyone.

 

 

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That card would be a waste for the use with unRAID since it's a real hardware RAID card (ROC).

 

Despite that, I can't say though if it will work with unRAID - tend to say it won't.

 

You need a simple HBA (host bus adapter) that passes the drives through to the OS.

LSI is pricey! Check the reference builds from IBM or SuperMicro.

Dell might also work but it seems that not every Dell card can be crossflashed.

 

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That card would be a waste for the use with unRAID since it's a real hardware RAID card (ROC).

 

Despite that, I can't say though if it will work with unRAID - tend to say it won't.

 

You need a simple HBA (host bus adapter) that passes the drives through to the OS.

LSI is pricey! Check the reference builds from IBM or SuperMicro.

Dell might also work but it seems that not every Dell card can be crossflashed.

 

Yeah I know what you mean but I was given this card for free and was in need so I figured I would try it out :/ guess i'll buy one of the recommended ones.

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Well, if you have it for free, then why don't you test it?  ???

 

I popped it into my unraid server but unraid doesn't see it and i'm not 100% sure what to do when it comes to these cards, that's why I was trying to see if it was supported etc. I can get into it's gui before unraid boots and it detects the one hard drive i connected to it but that's as far as ive gotten

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  • 2 weeks later...

Look for settings like "passthrough, or disable RAID" if available.

 

I did not find any option like you mentioned so i tried to flash it and was unsuccessful, I'm pretty sure I bricked it so i'll just order one of the recommend cards in the next few days.

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Look for settings like "passthrough, or disable RAID" if available.

 

I did not find any option like you mentioned so i tried to flash it and was unsuccessful, I'm pretty sure I bricked it so i'll just order one of the recommend cards in the next few days.

 

I doubt you bricked it. That card is not based on the same hardware as this thread, so none of the commands should work. I do not think it can be flashed to JBOD.

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Look for settings like "passthrough, or disable RAID" if available.

 

I did not find any option like you mentioned so i tried to flash it and was unsuccessful, I'm pretty sure I bricked it so i'll just order one of the recommend cards in the next few days.

 

I doubt you bricked it. That card is not based on the same hardware as this thread, so none of the commands should work. I do not think it can be flashed to JBOD.

 

Well I figure it was worth a shot but I cant get it to show its gui and is not detected when running sas2flash

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  • 1 month later...

I found the P15 files here (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/29059-sas2008-lsi92409211-firmware-files/) and was able to successfully flash my m1015.  However, I now noticed that P19 is the current version.  How do I go about updating the firmware and bios to the latest P19 version? 

 

Sorry for the noob question but I have been searching high and low for this info with no luck.

 

Thanks!

 

Chris

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I found the P15 files here (http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/29059-sas2008-lsi92409211-firmware-files/) and was able to successfully flash my m1015.  However, I now noticed that P19 is the current version.  How do I go about updating the firmware and bios to the latest P19 version? 

 

Sorry for the noob question but I have been searching high and low for this info with no luck.

 

Thanks!

 

Chris

I use the instructions for upgrading at the bottom of this post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=26774.msg234516#msg234516
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First of all thank you all for the information provided on this forum.

 

I have a LSI 9240-8i that I'm trying to downgrade to IT mode using the 9211-8i P19 firmware as described on the first page and the M1015 Cross flashing message from BetaQuasi.

 

I managed to execute the megarec command listed below and reboot;

megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin
megarec -cleanflash 0

 

But when trying the sas2flsh commands I receive the error message "ERROR: Failed to initialize PAL" aka The PAL error. Another mainboard is not an option and I do not have an UEFI Shell option on my Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H mainboard, at least not that I'm aware off. I tried to create an bootable USB stick that would boot from UEFI, but I did not succeed yet.

 

At the moment I'm trying a LinuxMint USB and the SAS2FLSH for Linux after spending hours looking for a UEFI boot option together with the SAS2FLASH.efi file.

 

Tips and guides are welcome. Thank you in advance !

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I have solved my cross flashing issue. But not after my favorite mainboard brand Gigabyte disappointed me.

 

I learned how easy it is to make a USB pendrive EFI bootable. Just drop this binary into that flash drive FAT's root directory and rename it to <shellx64.efi>.

Also, from Roderick W. Smith's site rodsbook.com I learned that Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI implementation is one of the worst that Mr Smith has encountered. So, if you have a Gigabyte mainboard forget EFI Shell, it probably won't work. It has cost me several hours today.

 

I eventually solved it by inserting the LSI 9240-8i into the PCI Express x16 slot of an Asrock H81 Pro BTC mainboard. (A mainboard I almost forgot I still own. A relic from my scrypt mining days.) After entering the BIOS and going to the last menu "Exit", I selected the bottom option "Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device". It gave me a <SHELL> prompt. I selected my USB pendrive by typing "FS0:". I browsed to the location of my sas2flash.efi, 2118it.bin and mptsas2.rom files and executed the following two commands;

sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

Identical to BetaQuasi's M1015 Cross flashing instructions except that I used <sas2flash.efi> instead of <sas2flsh.exe>.

Unraid 5.0.5 has identified the card and the attached drives. I'm a happy camper ! ;-)

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I have solved my cross flashing issue. But not after my favorite mainboard brand Gigabyte disappointed me.

 

I learned how easy it is to make a USB pendrive EFI bootable. Just drop this binary into that flash drive FAT's root directory and rename it to <shellx64.efi>.

Also, from Roderick W. Smith's site rodsbook.com I learned that Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI implementation is one of the worst that Mr Smith has encountered. So, if you have a Gigabyte mainboard forget EFI Shell, it probably won't work. It has cost me several hours today.

 

I eventually solved it by inserting the LSI 9240-8i into the PCI Express x16 slot of an Asrock H81 Pro BTC mainboard. (A mainboard I almost forgot I still own. A relic from my scrypt mining days.) After entering the BIOS and going to the last menu "Exit", I selected the bottom option "Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device". It gave me a <SHELL> prompt. I selected my USB pendrive by typing "FS0:". I browsed to the location of my sas2flash.efi, 2118it.bin and mptsas2.rom files and executed the following two commands;

sas2flash -o -f 2118it.bin -b mptsas2.rom
sas2flash -o -sasadd 500605b0xxxxxxxx (replace the xx's with the SAS address from your card)

 

Identical to BetaQuasi's M1015 Cross flashing instructions except that I used <sas2flash.efi> instead of <sas2flsh.exe>.

Unraid 5.0.5 has identified the card and the attached drives. I'm a happy camper ! ;-)

After having the same issue with a different motherboard and manufacturer, this unRAID post helped me through all my problems. Glad you got through your issues.

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  • 1 month later...

I've been trying to cross flash my Dell PERC 6/i card into a LSI SAS 1078 card and it flashes correctly except afterwords, the ctrl-r key combo to manage the RAID and virtual drives just locks up the card. After doing a lot of reasing, I believe the problem is because I also need to flash the SBR rom from the SAS1078 card to the PERC 6/i but I don't have the SBR file. Any chance one of you kind people could dump the SBR rom from a legit SAS1078 card? Or know where I can get it?

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