SATA controller not detecting drives


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Hi all!
New to Unraid and this forum, so please go easy on me :P

 

I recently put together a storage server:

Asus Prime B450M-A

AMD Athlon 200GE 3.2GHz

G.Skill Trident Z RGB LED DDR4 3200MHz 2x8GB

 

In order to cram more drives in there I've installed a ST-LAB A-590 8-Port SATA 6G PCIe Card (http://www.sunrichtech.com.hk/ProductShow.aspx?Mid=1&pid=312&cid=124&fid=110)

 

Once I had the card installed the boot up time increased and threw heaps of messages:
Pics of screen - https://photos.app.goo.gl/3BgiF3QwQRMwodHD9

 

After a while Unraid boots, and seemingly it does detect the card:

IOMMU group 8:	[12d8:2608] 01:00.0 PCI bridge: Pericom Semiconductor PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe2 6-Port/8-Lane Packet Switch
IOMMU group 9:	[12d8:2608] 02:01.0 PCI bridge: Pericom Semiconductor PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe2 6-Port/8-Lane Packet Switch
IOMMU group 10:	[12d8:2608] 02:02.0 PCI bridge: Pericom Semiconductor PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe2 6-Port/8-Lane Packet Switch
IOMMU group 11:	[12d8:2608] 02:03.0 PCI bridge: Pericom Semiconductor PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe2 6-Port/8-Lane Packet Switch
IOMMU group 12:	[12d8:2608] 02:04.0 PCI bridge: Pericom Semiconductor PI7C9X2G608GP PCIe2 6-Port/8-Lane Packet Switch

However it does not detect the drives attached to it.

 

Any ideas of what might be going on?

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@trurl here we go :)

storestep-diagnostics-20191109-1307.zip

 

And some new findings:
The very first thing to pop up as I boot the server is this screen
With no drives connected to the card this screen flashes four times, then Unraid boots normally.

With two drives connected to the card, the same screen flashes twice, on the third screen it lists the drives connected, on the fourth it's the same as the two first ones, and then Unraid boots, however much more slowly.

 

So it would seem the card DOES read the drives..

Edited by tTownTom
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Top of my head

 

The ASM1062 is a two port controller.  I would think that the card is utilizing a port multiplier, which are troublesome on any platform and should always be avoided.

 

Alternatively, if there are 4 ASM1062 controllers on the PCB, then only one of them has the heat sink attached to it, which would imply that the manufacturer was too cheap to add the other 3 heat sinks on to it.. 

 

Push comes to shove, you get what you pay for.  There's a reason why some cards cost $50 and others much more.

 

Other than that, if the card can't detect the drives, then there's zero chance that unRaid will.  You can always try reseating your power and sata connectors to the drives.  Should also be noted that even though the card uses 2 SAS connectors, the card itself is incompatible with SAS drives and will only work with SATA.

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From the above screen shot, I would guess that your controller card has a single (2-port) ASM1062 Sata-controller chip, and each of those 2 ports is connected to one (of 2 [PM 0 & PM 1]) port-multiplier chip. Since that is a POST screen, only the first port/drive on each PM chip is seen (by the BIOS). That is not a problem.

 

The problem is that the kernel does not recognize these specific port-multiplier chips, and never "activates" them--this results in none of the PM-connected drives going active. As stated by others, switch to a card known to work with the hardware (your mobo) and software (unRaid) in play.

 

 

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2 hours ago, UhClem said:

From the above screen shot, I would guess that your controller card has a single (2-port) ASM1062 Sata-controller chip, and each of those 2 ports is connected to one (of 2 [PM 0 & PM 1]) port-multiplier chip. Since that is a POST screen, only the first port/drive on each PM chip is seen (by the BIOS). That is not a problem.

 

The problem is that the kernel does not recognize these specific port-multiplier chips, and never "activates" them--this results in none of the PM-connected drives going active. As stated by others, switch to a card known to work with the hardware (your mobo) and software (unRaid) in play.

 

 

I think you're right. Plugging in more drives and switching the ports on the card still only shows two drives at any one time, just at different screen flashes (it shows four of theese screens with a back flash in between). If the kernel don't recognize them, is that due to drivers? 

As of now I don't have another card, so I would like to try and make it work, if there is any chance :)

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8 hours ago, tTownTom said:

(it shows four of theese screens with a back flash in between)

Your card work, it use a PCIe switch and fan out connect 4 SATA controller ( likely have 4 SATA card ), just don't know why

 

Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5.00: link online but device misclassified
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: link online but 1 devices misclassified, retrying
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: reset failed (errno=-11), retrying in 5 secs

 

Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5.00: link online but device misclassified
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: link online but 1 devices misclassified, retrying
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata5: reset failed (errno=-11), retrying in 8 secs

 

Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata6: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata6.00: link online but device misclassified
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata6: link online but 1 devices misclassified, retrying
Nov  9 11:25:12 storeStep kernel: ata6: reset failed (errno=-11), retrying in 10 secs

 

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13551

You may try as below, at BIOS disable the SATA port come from this card which no harddisk connect

 

Chris Gaukroger 2009-06-28 19:06:03 UTC

A temporary workaround for me (with GA-EP45-DS5) was: - disable the extra SATA ports not being used. Remember the ROM BIOS settings in case you disable the ports you are using! In ROM BIOS set Onboard SATA/IDE Device to Disable Now quick boots OK!

 

If above not work, could you try 3 things

 

1) Set longer boot pause in BIOS

2) Disable PCIe storage oprom in BIOS

3) Turn off IOMMU in Unraid

Edited by Benson
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Benson is correct.

(I "guessed" wrong, based on assumptions about the on-screen messge. [The term "PM" triggered "port multiplier" when there aren't any; there are 4 ASM106x controller chips.] Also, I didn't realize the OP only had 2 drives connected--I thought the others were "missing" and grasped for a reason.)

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1 hour ago, UhClem said:

Benson is correct.

(I "guessed" wrong, based on assumptions about the on-screen messge. [The term "PM" triggered "port multiplier" when there aren't any; there are 4 ASM106x controller chips.] Also, I didn't realize the OP only had 2 drives connected--I thought the others were "missing" and grasped for a reason.)

That's my bad, I should have been clear about that.

4 hours ago, Benson said:

You may try as below, at BIOS disable the SATA port come from this card which no harddisk connect

 

Chris Gaukroger 2009-06-28 19:06:03 UTC

A temporary workaround for me (with GA-EP45-DS5) was: - disable the extra SATA ports not being used. Remember the ROM BIOS settings in case you disable the ports you are using! In ROM BIOS set Onboard SATA/IDE Device to Disable Now quick boots OK!

 

If above not work, could you try 3 things

 

1) Set longer boot pause in BIOS

2) Disable PCIe storage oprom in BIOS

3) Turn off IOMMU in Unraid

Thanks for your suggestions, @Benson!
I've gone through all of them, and unfortunately none seems to work.

 

So I've bit the bullet and ordered a new card.

The LSI SAS 9207-8i seemed to have good user feedback and said to work out of the box. Cost a fortune in Norway, however it was a fraction of the price over at eBay. So I guess I'll try that once it arrives.

 

Thank you all for helping :)

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