Help! Infinite boot loop on Supermicro X11SPi-TF

[Whattteva]

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this.

I have a Supermicro X11SPi-TF with Xeon Silver 4210T. However, as soon as I plug in my HP H220 (LSI 9205-8i) controller card without even any drives plugged in to it. It's able to get past the initial POST, but refuses to boot to anything, not even to the BIOS and just reboots itself. I've tried all 3 PCIe x8 slots and both x16 slots. None of them allows the system to boot past POST.

I know the card works fine because I've tried it on two other systems; a Supermicro X10SLL-F + i3-4160 and an Asus Strix B550-F + Ryzen 5600X. The card works fine on both of those motherboards.

What's going on here?

Update:
I moved my Geforce RTX 3080 from my gaming machine to this board just to see that the slots are at least fine and it boots flawlessly all the way to a live Linux distro which correctly detects the GPU, so seems like motherboard just doesn't like that SAS card, which is a bummer.

 

[i386]

uefi vs legacy boot maybe?

 

[Whattteva]

uefi vs legacy boot maybe?

I don't think so. I'm able to boot in either mode without the HBA card plugged in.

 

[RolloZ170]

I don't think so. I'm able to boot in either mode without the HBA card plugged in.

issue with option ROM settings ?

 

[RolloZ170]

I don't think so. I'm able to boot in either mode without the HBA card plugged in.

some hp cards will actually cause the computer to get stuck at boot unless you disable the boot option rom in the motherboard bios first before plugging the card in

 

[Whattteva]

some hp cards will actually cause the computer to get stuck at boot unless you disable the boot option rom in the motherboard bios first before plugging the card in

OMG, thanks a lot! This sounds like it could be the issue. I'm going to try that out.

 

[RolloZ170]

the problem is that a HBA is another BOOT source for the BIOS. i see legacy OpROM is default and if you have set to UEFI mode and allow legacy boot the OpROM is executed which will fail in EFI mode. LSI cards allmost work in ASUS, issues in ASRock.

 

[Whattteva]

the problem is that a HBA is another BOOT source for the BIOS. i see legacy OpROM is default and if you have set to UEFI mode and allow legacy boot the OpROM is executed which will fail in EFI mode. LSI cards allmost work in ASUS, issues in ASRock.

For reference, the board I'm trying to boot is a Supermicro X11. You're correct though, the Asus board I tested on works just fine.

Also, setting the OPROM to EFI did the trick and it let me boot. However, it seems that while I can install to the disk, the board doesn't seem to be able to boot from the HBA disk. Is that normal? Sorry, I'm new to HBA's. That being said, this is still far better than the boot loop I was experiencing.

 

[RolloZ170]

, the board doesn't seem to be able to boot from the HBA disk. Is that normal?

not from OEM HBA with custom OPROM

 

[mattventura]

not from OEM HBA with custom OPROM

This is likely the issue. OP, have you tried flashing it to the standard LSI image? (including the BIOS, not just the firmware)

 

[Whattteva]

This is likely the issue. OP, have you tried flashing it to the standard LSI image? (including the BIOS, not just the firmware)

Haven't done that yet. Still running original firmware that came with the card (HP version 13).
I was trying to avoid that cause of you know, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But seems like in this case, it is broke. I just hope I'm not going to brick it cause it sounds like some special voodoo incantation is required to flash it from what I've read.

From it requiring P5 to flash to an earlier LSI version and then to the latest, erasing fails, etc. What are your experiences flashing this card?

 

[Whattteva]

Quick update. I have now successfully updated the firmware on the HP H220 card to LSI stock P20 and it now boots under legacy without locking up the system.

Thank you all for the help. This would not have been possible without the help of this forum.