HP T730 and X540 doesn't boot.

[Vandeyr]

Hi folks,

I'm just getting into building my first home lab (following the FUTO guide) and I'm putting together a router. I have an HP T730 Think Client and a NIC with an Intel X540 chipset (specifically the AOC-STG-i2T).

The HP T730 boots without the card installed and with the PCIe slot disabled, but it doesn't boot with the card installed and the PCIe slot enabled. Does anyone know why that might be and how to make it work?

Worst-case, I bought a X540 NIC that I'm not going to use and I'll need to get a i350-T4 (which has been verified to work), but I'm hoping to get this more powerful card to work!

Thanks in advance!

Forum thread about the T730
Ebay listing for the NIC. Is it a fake?

 

[PD_ZFS-User]

Vandeyr,

You could try masking pins B5 and B6 on the pcie connector of the X540 NIC. Others have had success with that technique. Here is a blog post with pictures which explains what to try in greater detail. I think they just used standard electrical tape to mask the pins. If you have any Kapton tape, that is probably a better choice, but either should work: Modding a Dell Perc 6 / Dell H310 / Dell H710 (other LSI 1078 or 9223-8i based) SAS Raidcontroller

Best of luck,
PD_ZFS-User

 

[Greg_E]

Are you certain the card works?

 

[Vandeyr]

Thanks for the responses.

Yes, the card works. I tested it in a different system.

I tried masking the B5 and B6 pins according to that guide. The electrical tape liked to slide around when seating the card so I used Scotch tape to test.

With the two pins masked, the t730 boots once, but when I turn the t730 off and on again, it fails to boot. If I remove the card, turn the t730 on then off, insert the card, then power on, it boots.

What could be causing it to fail to boot after the first boot? I have a feeling it has to do with "wake on LAN" settings, but I'm unfamiliar with that so I'm not confident.

 

[Greg_E]

I've only used i350 and x520 based cards in my T740, and I don't think the 740 even has wake on lan, not many features you can turn on or off in there at all.

Can you turn off the feature to load the card boot rom?

 

[Vandeyr]

I wasn't able to find any setting in the BIOS for "load card boot rom". I'm also not sure what that means or if I'm looking in the right place. Is it one of the switch positions on the card?

I did some experimenting. It's worth noting that when the system fails to boot, the card gets very hot.

1. The BIOS has a Network Boot option and a "S5 Wake on LAN" option. I disabled both of those.
2. With both of those disabled, the computer booted and restarted fine except for when I force shut-down by pressing the power button. Oddly, it still works when I unplug and replug the power adapter, which might have to do with the "After Power Loss" setting in the BIOS (which has the options of "ON", "OFF", and "Previous State").
3. I disabled all power saving options. When I reboot, it works, but when I power cycle, it fails to boot (with both the power jack and power button).
4. I enabled all power saving options. Rebooting fails.
5. There's a setting called, PCI SERR# Generation. Could that do anything?

I'm having trouble attaching photos because of their size. If you think they'd help, I'll find a way to compress them.

 

[Greg_E]

I'll have to see if I can find one that's cheap, my T620 and my T630 are getting OLD.

I know the bios on the T740 is extremely limited, guessing the 730 is the same.

Is the bios on your 730 up to date? You can update it from a HBCD boot disk if you extract the rights drivers and drop them into the drivers folder after flashing the image to a USB drive.

 

[PD_ZFS-User]

Vandeyr,

Looking at my t740's BIOS settings (maybe you have similar on the t730) there is a setting under the "Advanced" tab, "Option ROM Launch Policy", then "PCIe Slot Option ROM Download" ; setting is "Enabled" or "Disabled". I believe this is the setting that Greg_E was referring to in post #5 above. You could try both settings for this option to see if anything improves.

PD_ZFS-User

 

[Vandeyr]

Thank you for that clarification PD_ZFS-user and Greg_E for finding the solution. Disabling the Option ROM option with power saving and Wake on LAN options turned on allows it to reboot fine unless I reboot from within pfsense.

For now, I've found an i350-t4 so I'm going to stick that card in. If I decide to tinker more with the X540 in the future, I'll update this thread with what I find.