AOC-SLG3-2M2 to Bifurcate or not Bifurcate on X9DRi-LN4F+

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Philmatic

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Sep 15, 2011
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Just a quick update, picked up another AOC-SLG3-2M2, along with two more HP EX920’s (Newegg had them on sale) and plopped it into slot 2, turned on bifurcation (4x4x8) and it worked perfectly.
 
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sqrdevl

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Jul 27, 2019
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I have a DRi and got my AOC-SLG3-2M2 to work.

The bios does not support booting from nvme out of the box (with 3.3).

I followed the nvme bios flash instructions on win-raid forums. You have to use the AMI bios flash tool and not the UEFI bios flash tool due to something weird with the supermicro bios.

After doing that, nvme is recognized in the bios with one issue that the drives show up as a generic name and you can't really differenciate between the two nvme drives within the bios (such as boot order etc, it just says something like UEFI boot drive or something)

I have legacy OProm mode on, not UEFI. Bifurcation had to be set on the slot it was in

I was able to install Freenas using legacy mode install and it boots off the nvmes

Hopefully this will help someone.
Could you share a copy of your bios
 

IMI4tth3w

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Sep 27, 2019
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I have a DRi and got my AOC-SLG3-2M2 to work.

The bios does not support booting from nvme out of the box (with 3.3).

I followed the nvme bios flash instructions on win-raid forums. You have to use the AMI bios flash tool and not the UEFI bios flash tool due to something weird with the supermicro bios.

After doing that, nvme is recognized in the bios with one issue that the drives show up as a generic name and you can't really differenciate between the two nvme drives within the bios (such as boot order etc, it just says something like UEFI boot drive or something)

I have legacy OProm mode on, not UEFI. Bifurcation had to be set on the slot it was in

I was able to install Freenas using legacy mode install and it boots off the nvmes

Hopefully this will help someone.
Can you share more information on this? I'm running a X9DRi-F motherboard trying to get the AOC-SLG3-2M2 working with dual intel 1TB nvme ssds. So far i have updated bios from 3.2a to 3.3 using the IPMI interface with no changes. I have tested bifurcation in slots 1 and 5 with no success, both only allowing me to see 1 of the ssds. Current using this for an unraid/media server. So i don't need to boot from the ssds, just want the nvme raid 0 to have 2TB of cache for the unraid server.

I've got a quadro p2000 in slot 6 and a SAS2 raid card attached to a backplane in slot 3
 
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Zervun

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Feb 2, 2019
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Can you share more information on this? I'm running a X9DRi-F motherboard trying to get the AOC-SLG3-2M2 working with dual intel 1TB nvme ssds. So far i have updated bios from 3.2a to 3.3 using the IPMI interface with no changes. I have tested bifurcation in slots 1 and 5 with no success, both only allowing me to see 1 of the ssds. Current using this for an unraid/media server. So i don't need to boot from the ssds, just want the nvme raid 0 to have 2TB of cache for the unraid server.

I've got a quadro p2000 in slot 6 and a SAS2 raid card attached to a backplane in slot 3
The stock bios doesn't work, you have to inject the nvme driver into the bios as it isn't included in the default bios.

Follow this thread [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS

When you get down to modding the bios, do not use UEFItool use the AMI tool. There is an issue with supermicro bios and the UEFItool.

Once you have your new bios installed, the nvme will show up as something generic like "Windows nvme device" or something like that. If you have two nvme devices (I have 2x evo 960's) it will show two entries with the same name, which kind of makes it a pain knowing which is which but it works.
 
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rynal1995

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Dec 24, 2017
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The stock bios doesn't work, you have to inject the nvme driver into the bios as it isn't included in the default bios.

Follow this thread [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS

When you get down to modding the bios, do not use UEFItool use the AMI tool. There is an issue with supermicro bios and the UEFItool.

Once you have your new bios installed, the nvme will show up as something generic like "Windows nvme device" or something like that. If you have two nvme devices (I have 2x evo 960's) it will show two entries with the same name, which kind of makes it a pain knowing which is which but it works.

Hello Guys,

I hope i can bring some light to this problem.

Here a short explanation of my Setup:

Mainbord: x9dri-ln4f+ with the latest bios
M.2 adapter: AOC-SLG3-2M2
M.2 SSDs 2x Samsung 970 Evo V-Nand NVMe SSDs 250GB

i have to say after resolving some problems it works finaly, there are 3 key points you have to take care of.

1. Put your Pcie slots populated with the m.2 adapter in the right bifurcate mode in my case i used 4x/4x/4x/4x on every slot i put in such a card.

2. u have to put your mainboard in to UEFI Boot mode. (no bios compatibility mode. i also disabled pxe boot)

3 u have to install your OS in full UEFI mode in my case i used Proxmox (wich is debian based) (The easiest way to find out if you are running UEFI or BIOS is to look for a folder /sys/firmware/efi. The folder will be missing if your system is using BIOS.)

thats are the 3 key steps to use pcie bifurcate on an supermicro x9dri-ln4f+

i got som problems with an lsi hba and UEFI Boot, make sure ur other hardware like network-cards and stuff support UEFI, at start i would pull out everything expect the nvme drives for testing.

if anyone get some questions, just ask!
 
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josh

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Oct 21, 2013
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Can you share more information on this? I'm running a X9DRi-F motherboard trying to get the AOC-SLG3-2M2 working with dual intel 1TB nvme ssds. So far i have updated bios from 3.2a to 3.3 using the IPMI interface with no changes. I have tested bifurcation in slots 1 and 5 with no success, both only allowing me to see 1 of the ssds. Current using this for an unraid/media server. So i don't need to boot from the ssds, just want the nvme raid 0 to have 2TB of cache for the unraid server.

I've got a quadro p2000 in slot 6 and a SAS2 raid card attached to a backplane in slot 3
Did you ever manage to get this to work? I have the same mobo, trying to make it work with ASUS Hyper M.2 card. Tested bifurcation in all slots, still seeing only 1 drive. Trying to figure out if it's a card problem and that maybe the AOC-SLG3-2M2 would actually work since they're both from SM. My IPMI firmware is 03.54 and BIOS is 3.3.
 

kagurazakakotori

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Mar 5, 2017
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Did you ever manage to get this to work? I have the same mobo, trying to make it work with ASUS Hyper M.2 card. Tested bifurcation in all slots, still seeing only 1 drive. Trying to figure out if it's a card problem and that maybe the AOC-SLG3-2M2 would actually work since they're both from SM. My IPMI firmware is 03.54 and BIOS is 3.3.
I have X9DR3-F, and JEYI iHyper-M2X16 card, the bifurcation never works. This post says the board does not support bifurcation at all.

Update: I emailed Supermicro, they tell me that X9DR3-F 3.3 BIOS actually doesn't support PCIe bifurcation. However, they send me a beta BIOS built on Feb 2020 that supports PCIe bifurcation. I flashed it and it works fine.

x9dr3-gparted-livecd.png

Update:
@Mizerka and I both tried the beta bios, it works well on X9DR3-F. @cferra flashed it on his X9DRi-F, but he hasn't tested the bifurcation yet. If you tested it works on your board, please leave me a reply for me to update this post, thanks a lot.

You can download the beta BIOS from the link below

X9DR3-F Beta BIOS - Google Drive
X9DR3-F Beta BIOS - Microsoft OneDrive

The nvme one is my modified version that supports nvme boot. The nvme driver comes from this tutorial on win-raid.

Flash it AT YOUR OWN RISK and MAKE A BACKUP before flashing. The flash command is "AfuEfix64.efi <bios file> /P /B /N /K /R /FDR /MER /OPR", you can also flash the bios via IPMI.

Update: Make sure Preserve NVRAM is unchecked when flashing the BIOS with IPMI.

THIS DOES NOT WORK ON X9DRi/3-LN4F, they are different boards, and they support PCIe bifurcation since 3.3 stable bios.

Update:
Supermicro released the 3.4 bios officially, and 3.4 supports PCIe bifurcation, so I think you should not use the 3.3 beta anymore.
 
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Mizerka

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Aug 29, 2020
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I have X9DR3-F, and JEYI iHyper-M2X16 card, the bifurcation never works. This post says the board does not support bifurcation at all.

Update: I emailed Supermicro, they tell me that X9DR3-F 3.3 BIOS actually doesn't support PCIe bifurcation. However, they send me a beta BIOS built on Feb 2020 that supports PCIe bifurcation. I flashed it and it works fine.

View attachment 15607
Yo, my dude, please share bios files they gave you, when I spoke with them, the guy just said "EOL can't help you". Checked their site now, they actually removed the page as well, so weird.
 

Mizerka

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Aug 29, 2020
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Can confirm the Beta bios, 3.3 Feb'20 is working as expected. All 4 nvme's using hyper m2 x4 v2 are in there as expected (with separate iommu's). I will share links to my mega.nz once kagurazakakotori confirms he's okay with me doing so.

links;


all credit goes to kagurazakakotori.
 
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Prof_G

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Jan 16, 2020
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Sweetness I just picked up one of these.. anybody know if you can use expander on the sas/Sara port that’s onboard.
 

Spearfoot

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Apr 22, 2015
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Yo, my dude, please share bios files they gave you, when I spoke with them, the guy just said "EOL can't help you". Checked their site now, they actually removed the page as well, so weird.
Yeah, Supermicro has been removing a lot of older EOL systems from their site recently. Drat!

I own a system based on the X9DRi-LN4F+ motherboard, plus several other EOL models.

You can still download the most recent X9DRi/X9DR3 BIOS (v3.4) by browsing to the 'SuperStorage 6047R-E1R224N' support page here, and selecting the BIOS link. Don't know how long it will be available...

 

kagurazakakotori

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Mar 5, 2017
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Yeah, Supermicro has been removing a lot of older EOL systems from their site recently. Drat!

I own a system based on the X9DRi-LN4F+ motherboard, plus several other EOL models.

You can still download the most recent X9DRi/X9DR3 BIOS (v3.4) by browsing to the 'SuperStorage 6047R-E1R224N' support page here, and selecting the BIOS link. Don't know how long it will be available...

It seems they just removed the links to the older product detail page, but you can still get there by simply googling your motherboard model.


This thread also provides download links to older BIOS/IPMI firmware.
 

Prof_G

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Jan 16, 2020
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From IPMI I'm getting board Mismatch on x9DRi-LN4F+ with the NVME rom. So I downloaded the new 3.4 bios for the x9Dri-LN4F+ and did the same injection you did and while I won't know about the support for a couple of days the bios seemed to flash fine.
 
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Mizerka

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Aug 29, 2020
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From IPMI I'm getting board Mismatch on x9DRi-LN4F+ with the NVME rom. So I downloaded the new 3.4 bios for the x9Dri-LN4F+ and did the same injection you did and while I won't know about the support for a couple of days the bios seemed to flash fine.
Ln4f doesn't need this bios, 3.3 confirmed working. If you want nvme boot there are modded bios in other threads
 

bbqdt

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Sep 15, 2019
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Has anyone tried bifurcation on the latest “3.4” for X9DR3-F/X9DRi-F dated 6/30/2020?
 

Mizerka

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Aug 29, 2020
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Me and 2 others I know did, working fine without issues. Nvme mod works with it as well, same as 3.3 did.
 

cferra

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Jun 27, 2016
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I have it installed but have not tried bifurcation yet - but the bios works without problems