I'm extremely stubborn.
For now, my NAS is running without this 9217-4i4e card, and thus 10 watts cooler. I was only using 3 internal SATA ports on the internal SAS connector. The external SAS connector was unused. I had exactly 3 SATA ports left on the Intel motherboard SATA ports.
Getting access to the last 2 (out of 6) motherboard SATA ports required me to change the PCIE setting for my Aquantia NIC from x4 to x2 in the BIOS. The Aquantia NIC still runs at the full 10 Gbps, though. PCIe 3.0 x2 is enough for that, although I tested only half-duplex.
I'm not replacing this broken SAS card. I will only put it back in if I can revive it. Even for $20, I'm not buying another one. I'm not just stubborn, but cheap
I haven't given up on the card, though. I just put it in my HTPC in the home theater room, in slot 3. That box acts as a DVR. Doesn't run 24/7, only when recording OTA HDTV shows. It will run 10W hotter with the SAS card in it. But at least I will be able to make further flashing attempts without bringing down by NAS and wearing out the HDDs at each time reboot/power-off.
Not sure if you saw this project I posted about earlier in the thread. I got the tool working. But it didn't save my card, unfortunately. Might even have messed it up.
LSI SAS2008/SAS2108 low-level recovery tool for Linux - marcan/lsirec
github.com
Let me know if you hear back and your card gets back to life. Have you tried contacting SuperMicro ?
No useful response in the HPE community forums yet. I guess I would need formal HPE support, but they probably charge $$$ for this, that would cost more than the $20 cost of a replacement card, and still not sure they could actually revive it. I hate to see a (physically) perfectly good board goes to waste because of a flashing error.