A little help please!

[whozon2]

I purchased 4U Supermicro 45 Bay SAS2 SATA JBOD Storage Expander LSI 9200-8e SC847E16-RJBOD1 from eBay. I racked everything and installed my OS (Solaris 11.3) where upon boot it hangs right after the initial banner. It hangs for roughly 40 minutes before presenting the login prompt. I though it was scanning the 24 drives I had installed at the time before I pulled them out with no difference noticed. I have also tried different cables, no difference. I am stuck.

Any ideas?

 

[MiniKnight]

What happens when it isn't attached?

 

[pricklypunter]

Most likely a driver issue I reckon, probably waiting until each individual port times out or something along those lines

Looking a little deeper into this, various posts around the web mention odd issues due to firmware on backplanes and HBA's not playing well together, so maybe try updating them both, also mentioned are odd issues when multipath is enabled but SATA disks are used. However as you pulled the disks and had the same outcome that's not likely the issue

 

[Patrick]

@whozon2 are you sure you have the SFF cables properly installed? I have seen this using the wrong ports on the chassis.

 

[whozon2]

What happens when it isn't attached?

It boots fine, the the expected minute or so delay for ZFS to time out.

Thanks

 

[whozon2]

@whozon2 are you sure you have the SFF cables properly installed? I have seen this using the wrong ports on the chassis.

I will double check, I figure that since it ultimately comes up and recognizes the sata drives, they were installed properly.


Thanks

 

[whozon2]

Most likely a driver issue I reckon, probably waiting until each individual port times out or something along those lines

Looking a little deeper into this, various posts around the web mention odd issues due to firmware on backplanes and HBA's not playing well together, so maybe try updating them both, also mentioned are odd issues when multipath is enabled but SATA disks are used. However as you pulled the disks and had the same outcome that's not likely the issue

I will check into both firmware updating options this afternoon. I did however disable multipathing and it made no difference.

Thanks

 

[MiniKnight]

So it has to be something to do with the initialization sequence.

 

[whozon2]

So it has to be something to do with the initialization sequence.

So... some lessons learned:

- Don't do firmware updates at 2am in the morning because you woke up to pee

- That firmware image that comes with the package is rarely the one that you need

- Testing the command syntax with the above incorrect image will render the SAS expander unrecognizable

I ended up flashing the one remaining board (in for a penny, in for a pound) and the delay is gone. I have contacted Supermicro for the latest firmware and to see if they have a fix. I think I will probably end up having to send it in for them to unbrick it.

If anyone has experience with recovering from the bad flash, please chime in.

Thanks for everyone's help thus far.

 

[pricklypunter]

Oops, reminds me of Dell updates, it's almost like a trap door function, one foot wrong and it's tears all round
I'm sure SM will be able to help sort it out, they are usually pretty good that way. Still, the good news is that your original issue now has a solution, i.e brick the board and get SM to fix it for you

Probably best to screen capture your steps when attempting to flash it with the correct firmware and tools and post a link to them, that way there's no ambiguity about what you're doing. The good news is that there is a standard flash memory part on the board that could in theory be written to directly if it came to that

If SM can't/ won't help you and you're out of options, let me know, I would be happy to do some bench surgery on it for you