Flash a Dell H310 with Dell HBA or LSI firmware?

[Terry Kennedy]

So just flash the new FW on top of p19? No need to remove old one first?

As long as the card already has LSI firmware of the desired type (IT/IR), just flash. You only need to go through the various erase / SBR / etc. stuff if you're trying to convert an OEM card for the first time. IT to IR (or the reverse) may require a downgrade back to a version that allows the change, then upgrade to the latest version once changed.

 

[whitey]

PM me for link and auth. IT mode v20, info below, think it's the latest

Firmware : \firmware\HBA_9211_8i_IT\2118it.bin Version no: 20.00.04.00 Release date: 21-MAY-15

 

[Continuum]

I accidentally wiped my h310's SAS address in flashing the LSI firmware. Anyone know where one could find the card's SAS address?

Is a unique SAS address necessary when only one HBA adapter is in a system? Any detriment to not having a unique SAS address?

 

[whitey]

Make one up, 16 digit, I don't think it matter as long as in your sas topology you don't have identical sas addresses conflicting. Recently had to do this and am not seeing any ill effects.

 

[Continuum]

Make one up, 16 digit, I don't think it matter as long as in your sas topology you don't have identical sas addresses conflicting. Recently had to do this and am not seeing any ill effects.

Thanks @whitey!

 

[whitey]

I lied, just flashed from v19 to v20 straight w/

sas2flsh -o -f 2118it.bin

 

[nthu9280]

~Continued

@whitey , You are a life saver!!! I thought I bricked a H310. The screenshots with the s2f version highlighted made all the difference. Previously only megarec could find it and flash it. I was using the latest version (20.00.04.00) of s2f was failing at Host Boot Reset. Spent over 4 hrs trying various combinations including 'LsiUtil'.

Phew!!!

Even stole your SAS Addr. Hope you don't mind

Thanks again!!!

 

[AndrewTBense]

Would this work for me to install the LSI RAID firmware on my H310? I know a lot of you guys are doing this for IT firmware. But one of my three LSI controllers I am using in my X99 workstation with three SSDs striped in RAID0. I'm unsatisfied with the performance and I believe that the Dell firmware may be the culprit.

 

[TLN]

Guys, I don't wanna start new thread, but what happens if I put H310 in PCIx1 slot? I guess it should go into PCIe X8 slot, but I have some other devices there.
1. Does it work? I guess yes.
2. Performance-wise. I guess will be fine. PCIe X1 is 4gbps (500MBps), which is roughly 4 times more then 1gbps NIC I have.

 

[RyC]

Guys, I don't wanna start new thread, but what happens if I put H310 in PCIx1 slot? I guess it should go into PCIe X8 slot, but I have some other devices there.
1. Does it work? I guess yes.
2. Performance-wise. I guess will be fine. PCIe X1 is 4gbps (500MBps), which is roughly 4 times more then 1gbps NIC I have.

I have an M1015 (same as H310 essentially) in a x1 slot (with one of these things http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...0039XPS5W/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8) and it works perfectly fine.

 

[nthu9280]

nothing else to add to this thread. whitey pretty much covered all bases here. Can confirm from my experiences flashing these cards that all of whitey's info is correct. Happy flashing!

For whatever reason, I could not flash on EFI system even with the P7 sas2flash.efi

Good old Dell T3400 and FreeDOS USB works great with @whitey's step by step screen shots.

 

[rubylaser]

For whatever reason, I could not flash on EFI system even with the P7 sas2flash.efi

Good old Dell T3400 and FreeDOS USB works great with @whitey's step by step screen shots.

These directions work great to flash h310s in UEFI.

The Dell Perc H310 to LSI 9211-8i IT Video

 

[HorizonXP]

So I just flashed 3 of these H310s to IT mode. It seemed to work fine.

However, whenever I boot into FreeNAS now, it stops at `mfi0 command timeout after 59 seconds` which it keeps repeating. I don't recall the specific hex code.

This is only in slot 4 on my X9SCM-iF. If I move it one of the other slots with the other 2 cards removed, FreeNAS boots fine. However, it could be also a result of running 3 cards at once. All 4 of my PCI slots are populated, so I'm not sure if that's causing the issue.

Any ideas?

 

[sfbayzfs]

Did you change the SAS address on the cards when you flashed them? Two or more cards having the same address would have a conflict.

 

[HorizonXP]

Did you change the SAS address on the cards when you flashed them? Two or more cards having the same address would have a conflict.

I'm pretty sure I reused the SAS addresses that they came with, but it's certainly possible I messed that up. It's worth a check, because installing 2 of them works fine, but a 3rd causes the issue. I'm not certain which combination causes the issue, but I may as well try swapping out cards and double checking.

 

[sfbayzfs]

I have seen cases where certain motherboards don't like certain cards in certain card slots, so if it's not the SAS address, try testing to see if it is the slot or the card by moving them around - try the other 2 cards in the problem slot on their own and in combination with each other and this card, and try moving your other non-controller card to the slot the controller is having trouble with.

Also, is your BIOS up to date?

 

[BackupProphet]

Yes please , a link to this package would be great what version of P20 is attached in your packages ?

http://us.backupbay.com/dellh310_firmware.zip

Short flashing guide
How to flash Dell H310 to HBA IT-Mode

First get the FreeDOS image.

Boot FreeDOS and find the SAS address:
(be ready to hit the pause/break key as it scrolls)

megacli -AdpAllInfo -aAll

Write down the SAS address


Clean the controller firmware.

megarec.exe -writesbr 0 sbremtpy.bin
megarec.exe -cleanflash 0

The controller needs to reset. Reboot!
Flash to latest version from Dell.

sas2flsh.exe -f 6gbpsas.fw

Downgrade to an old LSI version:

sas2flsh.exe -o -f 2118P7.bin

You will get a question after a warning message like Product id and vendor id doensn't match. Do you want to flash anyway. Yes!


Final flash operation! Flash to IT mode and latest LSI version:
If you do not need bios, you can omit the -b option.

sas2flsh.exe -f 2118IT.bin -b mptsas2.rom

Finally add the SAS number and you are done!

sas2flsh.exe -o -sasadd 500605xxxxxxxxxx

 

[BackupProphet]

Note! One reboot is enough, you dont have to reboot for every flash procedure.

 

[nthu9280]

Nice write-up. Couple of quick notes.

1. sas2flash.exe /FreeDOS does not always work on newer (uefi) systems. For those systems, you need to use megarec in Dos and then switch to uefi boot and use sas2flash.efi
2. When flashing the P7 IT FW, use p7 version of sas2flash (.exe/.efi). It took me a while to figure this one out. I was trying to use only the latest .exe and it does not work.

3. I use sas2flsh -o -reset between flashes ( may be redundant as the FW flash command does appear to reset at the end of the process)


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[fractal]

I just went through the process myself and none of the guides I found worked for me by themselves. But, if you combine them all and do a little research on your own it does work. The things that bit me are: uefi bios requiring booting to usb then booting to uefi shell then ... and the fact that I wanted to boot from the controller so I had to go find the bios and none of the packages had the bios and many of the places had the wrong one

Updated: SAS HBA crossflashing or flashing to IT mode, Dell Perc H200 and H310 is pretty close to what I ended up with and covers the UEFI issue very well.

hint: you need to use "sas2flsh -o -b mptsas2.rom" after updating the firmware if you want to boot from the card. You can not combine the -f <file> and -b <file> on the same line like some guides suggest, or at least it didn't work for me.

hint2: find a machine without a UEFI bios to do the flashing and you will save yourself a LOT of time. You can do it with a machine with a UEFI bios. I did. But everyone says it is a lot faster to find without UEFI getting in the way.

Your card "may" have the SAS address on a label if you forgot to write it down. If not, you can make one up like the guides suggest.

5000 + the output from "openssl rand -hex 6" should work.

Finally, did you cut / cover the i2c lines? I think I read that some motherboards won't boot if they are left alone. Mine don't care so I didn't bother.