Flashing HP H220 SAS card to latest FW

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BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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I saw this video last night :) However upon trying to use lsitutil (after getting dos4gw, I'm on freedos)
lsiutil -s shows 0 MPT ports found - not sure why it doesn't find the card
However sas2flsh finds the card. I have reflashed the firmware the old skool way, flashing only the bios without the efi bios and I still get a RSOD :(
So it looks like I can only use the card for data drives and not to boot from :( , which I would like on my DL380e Gen8

Also, any ideas where could I find the previous version (V19) of the bios? If i wanted to try that.
broadcom.com website has all the old versions too.
 

schander

New Member
Mar 23, 2021
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broadcom.com website has all the old versions too.
Apologies if I sound a little thick here. :confused:
From the Broadcom site which controller am I looking for?
LSI92074i4e ?- which is mentioned earlier in this thread, however isn't this for a card with x4 internal and x4 external connector?
I have looked at this thread:

It appears that I need to be looking for:
LSI9217_8i package ( the 8i stands for 2 internal x4 connectors?)
OR
LSI9207_8i package
With both of these packages the IT firmware is in a folder called
HBA_9207_8i_IT with binary names 9207-8.bin and the MD5's are exactly the same, as are the mptsas2.rom's
How are these different from the one from Supermicro (PH20.00.07.00-IT)

Thanks again for all the help
 

BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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Apologies if I sound a little thick here. :confused:
From the Broadcom site which controller am I looking for?
LSI92074i4e ?- which is mentioned earlier in this thread, however isn't this for a card with x4 internal and x4 external connector?
I have looked at this thread:

It appears that I need to be looking for:
LSI9217_8i package ( the 8i stands for 2 internal x4 connectors?)
OR
LSI9207_8i package
With both of these packages the IT firmware is in a folder called
HBA_9207_8i_IT with binary names 9207-8.bin and the MD5's are exactly the same, as are the mptsas2.rom's
How are these different from the one from Supermicro (PH20.00.07.00-IT)

Thanks again for all the help
Yeah, get the mptsas2.rom from P19 version for 9207-8i.
 
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vLabStu

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Jan 19, 2022
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Just wanted to say a massive thank you to @BLinux after reading this post I was able to gain access to the BIOS of my H220 and H221 cards. On installing these into my DL380P Gen8 the cards worked fine at the OS level but had issues accessing the BIOS config for the cards. I had to downgrade the BIOS from 7.39.02.00/7.39.00.00 to 7.37.00.00 which worked.

Also managed to switch the cards from P20 - 20.00.07.00 to P20 - 20.00.06.00, which have read elsewhere is the better firmware.

Cards are;

H220 - Really a 9207-8i
H221 - Really a 9205-8e (times 2)

I did have to use the P14 SAS2FLSH.exe flashing software, but this was easily found on the Broadcom site, along with the correct firmware.

Doing a "SAS2FLSH -listall" gave me the controller numbers then "SAS2FLSH -c x -list" with x being the controller number helped me identify the model of LSI cards. I know that there can be some confusion on what model these cards are.

always been wary of flashing these cards, with so many people bricking these, but @BLinux gave me hope by saying these cards are not as fragile as you think.


Thanks again
 
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BLinux

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Just wanted to say a massive thank you to @BLinux after reading this post I was able to gain access to the BIOS of my H220 and H221 cards. On installing these into my DL380P Gen8 the cards worked fine at the OS level but had issues accessing the BIOS config for the cards. I had to downgrade the BIOS from 7.39.02.00/7.39.00.00 to 7.37.00.00 which worked.

Also managed to switch the cards from P20 - 20.00.07.00 to P20 - 20.00.06.00, which have read elsewhere is the better firmware.

Cards are;

H220 - Really a 9207-8i
H221 - Really a 9205-8e (times 2)

I did have to use the P14 SAS2FLSH.exe flashing software, but this was easily found on the Broadcom site, along with the correct firmware.

Doing a "SAS2FLSH -listall" gave me the controller numbers then "SAS2FLSH -c x -list" with x being the controller number helped me identify the model of LSI cards. I know that there can be some confusion on what model these cards are.

always been wary of flashing these cards, with so many people bricking these, but @BLinux gave me hope by saying these cards are not as fragile as you think.


Thanks again
glad this helped. congrats on getting everything working. :)
 

nev_neo

Active Member
Jul 31, 2013
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Just wanted to say a massive thank you to @BLinux after reading this post I was able to gain access to the BIOS of my H220 and H221 cards. On installing these into my DL380P Gen8 the cards worked fine at the OS level but had issues accessing the BIOS config for the cards. I had to downgrade the BIOS from 7.39.02.00/7.39.00.00 to 7.37.00.00 which worked.

Also managed to switch the cards from P20 - 20.00.07.00 to P20 - 20.00.06.00, which have read elsewhere is the better firmware.

Cards are;

H220 - Really a 9207-8i
H221 - Really a 9205-8e (times 2)

I did have to use the P14 SAS2FLSH.exe flashing software, but this was easily found on the Broadcom site, along with the correct firmware.

Doing a "SAS2FLSH -listall" gave me the controller numbers then "SAS2FLSH -c x -list" with x being the controller number helped me identify the model of LSI cards. I know that there can be some confusion on what model these cards are.

always been wary of flashing these cards, with so many people bricking these, but @BLinux gave me hope by saying these cards are not as fragile as you think.


Thanks again
Would you be able to share the link to the files and firmware used ? I'm trying to update my h220 card from 15.x.x to 20.x.x.6.
 

AveryFreeman

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I have a strange question. I have been having trouble flashing the HP LSI 9217-4i4e with the 9217-4i4e P20 firmware from the Broadcom website.

I picked up 3 of these up on ebay for $15/ea and thought was a good deal, are indeed marked HP LSI 9217-4i4e. Spec on 9217-4i4e model says they're PCIe 3.0 x8.

The sas2flash.efi utility identifies them as SAS2308 chipset, though, and says they are not compatible with the firmware I downloaded. Error code says mismatch of 0x87 card with 0x64 0x74 0x76 firmware. which seems odd because from what I am gathering from this thread and a couple others, the firmware they've used for this HP-branded card is for the 9207-4i4e, and all successful reports I have read of people flashing this HP branded card mention using the 9207 firmware. Obviously, this is a different card model number, which if I remember my research is a PCIe 2.0 x8 card.

I am not really that upset if the cards turn out to be PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0, but what's with the inconsistencies in model number for a given chipset on the HP OEM model vs the LSI retail branded model? It does make flashing the units a bit confusing.

Thanks!
 

AveryFreeman

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An update to my last post:

This was super easy once I used the 9207-IT firmware for my HP 9217-4i4e SAS controllers - go figure.

1) I did a deep dive on the spec PDFs of both the 9207 and 9217 and didn't notice any difference between the two, the 9207 is PCIe 3.0 x8 unlike I suspected (as the 9201 is PCIe 2.0 so I was thinking 920x devices were PCIe 2.0 but doesn't seem to be the case on the 9207 or HP 9217-4i4e which uses the 9207-4i4e IT firmware, but uses 9217-IR firmware - weird af...)

2) As I alluded, the 9207 firmware is the correct IT firmware for the HP branded 9217-4i4e card, it works without issue, unlike the broadcom-downloaded firmware for 9217-4i4e for whatever reason (I'm guessing HP OEM but really not sure). Obviously there's a chipset mismatch between the HP OEM 9217 and LSI retail 9217 (the HP is a SAS2308 or 0x87)

3) you can flash multiple cards by using the -c flag, e.g. I had two cards in my X9SCL-F, sas2flash.efi -listallboards produced result of 0 and /ICODE]1[/ICODE] controller numbers, respectively

I could run the following

Code:
# for the first card:

sas2flash.efi -c 0 -o -f 9207-4i4e.bin -b mptsas2.rom

# and then for the second card:

sas2flash.efi -c 1 -o -f 9207-4i4e.bin -b mptsas2.rom
So you don't have to pull the cards out and do them in the motherboard one by one - helpful if you have a gang of them to do at a time, like I did - I had 3, and did the first one by itself as recommended by most posts, but thought there had to be a better way after seeing how long the whole process took. The -listallboards flag helps, but it'd be pretty easy to guess {0..n} if those were all you had in your board.

If this hasn't given you any errors, I'm guessing you're all good - reboot and set INT19 postponed and your OPROM for the PCIe card on for whatever bootloader type you're using (probably UEFI if you're using the EFI software for flashing). Oh, and make sure BIOS is set to force add-on firmware. These are usually in the boot options menu (the first submenu under "advanced" options menu on my supermicro board).

Then you'll get the menu when you start up the computer where you can hit CTRL-A and checkout your options in the bios menu (sometimes you even get a menu inside the motherboard's bios, which is cool).

If you do get a weird result, error or something, and haven't done any prep, you might want to erase the pre-existing firmware first. Like, if this process I just detailed gives you some kind of error.

I had already trashed my NVRAMs in freedos using megarec.exe before I got the PAL mismatch error and needed to use UEFI firmware instead. But if you're just getting into this, you probably want to start here (I'm just guessing, as it was not the path I took, obviously).

I'm assuming you could erase multiples the same way using :

Code:
# for the first card:

sas2flash.efi -c 0 -o -e 7

# and then for the second card:

sas2flash.efi -c 1 -o -e 7
If 7 doesn't work, try 6. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure this either has to do with NVRAM position or PCIe bus. That's a pretty big discrepancy, but in practice it doesn't really matter - if 7 gives you an error, just try 6.

Then go back and try and flash again. Good luck everyone.
 

autumnwalker

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Nov 4, 2019
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I have a couple of these H220's - I believe they are in IT mode from HP. Is there any reason to flash these if they are already in IT mode to use them in something like TrueNAS or Unraid?
 

AveryFreeman

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I have a couple of these H220's - I believe they are in IT mode from HP. Is there any reason to flash these if they are already in IT mode to use them in something like TrueNAS or Unraid?
To upgrade their firmware is all I can think of - HP is notorious for only supporting their cards a couple years

At least the LSI rebrands can be flashed with LSI stock firmware. I had a gang of Adaptec/Microsemi HP OEMs and I couldn't flash them with stock firmware for the life of me. There truly appears to be no way to do it AFAICT.

HP firmware was on 1.98 while Microsemi firmware for same card was at 3.32 (!) Yikes! And HP will never pay a developer to touch them ever again. It's why you see SmartHBA HPWS 2100-4i4e cards (Z4 workstation pulls) on eBay for $50 while the stock model is $200+.