Getting P812 working in Non-hp server, connect to MSA60

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eatthoselemons

New Member
Apr 4, 2020
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I have been trying to get my P812 working in a non-hp system for over 30 hours now (unfortunately split up due to only being able to do things on the weekend :/ )

It is a used p812 but I have verified that it works by putting it in an old (DL360 G5) server and connecting it to my msa 60. However due to the low compute from the G5 and also the noise (being a 1u server and low wife approval factor) I am trying to get the P812 working in my 4u Ryzen 1700 server. I want to use the P812 as an HBA card.

However I cannot seem to get the server to even boot. When the P812 is in the Ryzen server the server gets stuck in a boot loop. After loading the p812 rom, it seems to find that the p812 is not in an HP server and so it forces a reboot. From reading the other forum posts on this topic (latest one I could find was from 2016) It seems that it is possible with the correct firmware. (and one other post on another site said you could disable the option boot rom for the pcie slots, however my mobo doesn't support that feature)

I am having trouble changing the firmware on the P812. It would appear that the card doesn't support the online firmware update so I need to use the offline firmware update. However when using Balena Etcher to flash the offline array configuration utility (Drivers & Software - HPE Support Center. complains that there is not a valid boot partition on the iso. So I then followed the arch instructions to make a bootable usb (USB flash installation media - ArchWiki) However the usb doesn't boot with this and the HP server just goes into a boot loop and complains that it cant find the debian 9 install that I have on the hp server or the usb.

I have also tried to see if you can disable the P812 boot rom from both hpssacli and hpacucli. Neither appear to have an option to disable the rom (from both the cli help command and searching the manuals)

links to other threads with info I have tried:
HP Smart Array p410 + SuperMicro X9SCM-F - boot in a loop
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hp-p812-array-setup-bios.20094/
and some others that I have closed over the course of trying to get the p812 working.

Based on my understanding it would seem that trying different firmware might work. However I don't know how to change the firmware on the p812 and if people know how to that would be great.

Other info:
Server: dl360 G5, debian 9
P812: firmware 5.14, drives work while connected but not connected while messing with the p812

tl;dr:
trying to get the HP p812 working in a non hp server and based on other threads trying to change the firmware might work. However I cannot seem to get the firmware changed on the p812