Guide: Flashing H310/H710/H810 Mini & full size to IT Mode

[Groto]

@LayerIIX Oh! You are correct. That is what I am looking for... I was looking for the Card BIOS...., but now that I read the directions I realize I don't need to boot off of any of those drives... so maybe I don't need to do that step... I was really looking for that BIOS menu because I thought it was an indication that I flashed correctly.

I also still have those other questions hopefully @fohdeesha can confirm. I am mostly just wanting to know that I am successfully flashed. I want to make sure I don't start using this card and then lose data because something is not correct.

 

[LayerIIX]

@LayerIIX Oh! You are correct. That is what I am looking for... I was looking for the Card BIOS...., but now that I read the directions I realize I don't need to boot off of any of those drives... so maybe I don't need to do that step... I was really looking for that BIOS menu because I thought it was an indication that I flashed correctly.

I also still have those other questions hopefully @fohdeesha can confirm. I am mostly just wanting to know that I am successfully flashed. I want to make sure I don't start using this card and then lose data because something is not correct.

Out of curiosity, when you boot up from the iso (either the FreeDOS or the Linux) and run the "info" program, do you get the screen like in the doc?

 

[Groto]

Out of curiosity, when you boot up from the iso (either the FreeDOS or the Linux) and run the "info" program, do you get the screen like in the doc?

View attachment 19393

Yep! and the SAS Address has my re-programmed SAS

 

[LayerIIX]

Yep! and the SAS Address has my re-programmed SAS

I would think it worked then. That being said, I certainly understand wanting to hear from the expert. I'll be interested to see what @fohdeesha has to say.

 

[Groto]

I would think it worked then. That being said, I certainly understand wanting to hear from the expert. I'll be interested to see what @fohdeesha has to say.

Nice Thanks for the help!

 

[mentalinc]

Indeed, as my post a few replies back indicates, on the new 1.9 ISO especially, virtualization really needs to be disabled for lsirec to work reliably. Disabling IOMMU alone may work on some platforms, but disabling the root virtualization extensions themselves (AMD-v / VT-D) that create the IOMMU groups in the first place is the best course of action - I'll be adding a note to the docs guide as soon as I push a new build out (working on some other revisions at the moment as well)

Problem was IOMMU was enabled (deep in bios menus) even with AMD-V and SR-iov disabled elsewhere in bios.
But all working and card IT flashed now and

 

[fohdeesha]

I would think it worked then. That being said, I certainly understand wanting to hear from the expert. I'll be interested to see what @fohdeesha has to say.

it's definitely working perfectly and flashed just fine, you've seen how temperamental lsirec is - if it flashed the whole image and it boots back up, it's good. if there's anything wrong with the firmware *at all*, it won't get brought up (failed checksum) and sas2flash certainly won't program a sas address back. as far as I've seen the high base i/o address high message is just a quirk of running things in a DOS environment on modern systems with a huge memory address range

 

[Groto]

it's definitely working perfectly and flashed just fine, you've seen how temperamental lsirec is - if it flashed the whole mage and it boots back up, it's good. if there's anything wrong with the firmware *at all*, it won't get brought up and sas2flash certainly won't program a sas address back. as far as I've seen the high base i/o address high message is just a quick of running things in a DOS environment on modern systems with a huge memory address range

Thanks a lot for all of your support! Nice not to have to buy another card.

 

[fohdeesha]

Problem was IOMMU was enabled (deep in bios menus) even with AMD-V and SR-iov disabled elsewhere in bios.
But all working and card IT flashed now and

That's strange you were still having the error with AMD-v disabled, that should make it impossible for sr-iov and IOMMU groups to be active. hmmm

 

[mentalinc]

100% was not working when I had AMD-V disabled, SR-IOV disabled.
As soon as I found IOMMU hidden in the depths of BIOS menu and turned it off, away it went.

Happy to try and test if that will be helpful, But you'll need send me the commands and conditions to run them under.

Ideally, you'd be able to build in a check to test if one of the three "appeared" to be enabled when there is a failuure.

if(somethingFails){
TestIfAMD-VEnabled()
TestIfSR-IOVEnabled()
TestIfIOMMU Enabled()
}

 

[bonox]

@fodeesha - followup for you and thanks for the effort mate. Turns out you don't need a 12th gen Dell server, you just need a PC. The H810 in a z68/sandy bridge PC worked a charm to flash this board. There was a caveat though:

1. I needed the tape over pin 5/6 to stop the smbus endless boot loop problem - search for smbus 5/6 pin tape if you need help with this like here: Yannick's Tech Blog: Modding a Dell Perc 6 / Dell H310 / Dell H710 (other LSI 1078 or 9223-8i based) SAS Raidcontroller (yannickdekoeijer.blogspot.com)

2. Once that was sorted, mine worked fine with on-board video, but some have reported that they also need to turn onboard video off and use a PCIe video card to get the card recognised.

Moved the reflashed card back to the server and we're all good with a new "LSI Adapter SAS2 2308 Mustang". Now to see if it actually works as an HBA.

thanks again, b

 

[bonox]

also, followup found in using your linux image to set the sas address showed that leaving the pins 5 and 6 covered with tape in the HP server solved all the issues with the sas mpt not loading in the first place. I would suggest that others try this where they've had trouble getting the cards and/or provided boot images to behave on non-dell hardware.

 

[Trenchy24]

Any ideas why the system is hanging at Rescanning PCI bus? Managed to get it to the PCI bus rescan complete stage...

Great work btw @fohdeesha

Cheers

 

[junkyinny]

If you have not flashed the bootrom, you should simply not have any prompt during bootup. Having the bootrom installed can add several minutes to the startup time as every drive needs to be spun up and read.

Bootrom presence is unrelated to the presence of the card in the iDRAC web panel. The LSI firmware doesn't know it needs to talk to the iDRAC, only the stock Dell firmware does. It is therefore normal to not have OOB channels when using an H710 in IT mode.

I flashed both bootroms and in idrac 7 i get RAC0503: There are no out-of-band capable controllers to be displayed under storage. is this normal?

 

[Madwulf]

Sorry if this has been resolved previously but I couldn't see anything for this. I've Managed to get through the FreeDOS part of the guide without much issue (failed first clear but worked the 2nd time). I'm now trying to boot into the linux image off a USB plugged into the back ports on my r720 and It just gets stuck in a cpu soft lockup like so. for reference its a H710P D1 I'm working on I do have other PCIE devices installed but none are other LSI cards.

 

[fohdeesha]

Sorry if this has been resolved previously but I couldn't see anything for this. I've Managed to get through the FreeDOS part of the guide without much issue (failed first clear but worked the 2nd time). I'm now trying to boot into the linux image off a USB plugged into the back ports on my r720 and It just gets stuck in a cpu soft lockup like so. for reference its a H710P D1 I'm working on I do have other PCIE devices installed but none are other LSI cards. View attachment 19922

that doesn't look good - can you try to boot just a regular ubuntu live ISO or similar? you might have to remove those extra pcie devices, whatever they are. lastly, you can try this v1.9 ISO image that has a much newer linux build iso, however you *must* disable virtualization in bios for it to work during the flash. once done you can re-enable it - https://fohdeesha.com/docs/store/perc/perc-crossflash-v1.9.zip

 

[Madwulf]

@fohdeesha thanks for help, I was reluctant to remove the GPU I've got in since its a pain to get in/out. Removing that seems to have resolved the soft lockup and I've now got it flashed and all working. Thanks for the easy guide on this!

 

[henchman]

nothing I do gets the mini 710 b0 to flash right, I flashed a 710p fine not too long ago and it just worked. Any ideas would be great. Going to try to remove all the cards, reset NVRAM tomorrow and see. It cross flashes, clears, loads it but never sets sas address. I have tried 1.9, the older one I had of 1.8 and the new one..same error.


I removed all other PCI cards, I removed my PCI NVRAM card, video, and other drive-in rear bay. It flashes now but then it dies tried to set the sas address.

I may just get an h710p mini, I know I can get them to flash right.

Last edit, update.

After I removed all that then turned back on virtualization but left the other setting turned off it all worked just as it should have with 1.8, 1.9 crashed my dell server for whatever reason.

It will boot in UEFI mode btw, just have to make sure PCI cards are in right order and drive my flexibly was jacking up installing and booting. Weird right? kind of a pain I know.

 

[Cookie]

Hi,

I did the FreeDOS part and it went well. Somehow though, every time I try to boot on the Linux ISO it creates a kernel panic, I've never been able to reach the CLI (fully boot). I don't see anyone else in the thread with this issue. I'm running a R720XD fully patched.

Thank you!

EDIT: Attached file for context. I tried disabling virtualization but I havent tried the v1.9 ISO yet, only v1.8

 

[henchman]

Hi,

I did the FreeDOS part and it went well. Somehow though, every time I try to boot on the Linux ISO it creates a kernel panic, I've never been able to reach the CLI (fully boot). I don't see anyone else in the thread with this issue. I'm running a R720XD fully patched.

Thank you!

EDIT: Attached file for context. I tried disabling virtualization but I havent tried the v1.9 ISO yet, only v1.8

The 1.9 crashes for me on the 720xd, make sure you remove all the PCI cards. I think I used the older 1.8 and it worked fine finally.