IBM M1115 Flashed OK can't boot OS from it

[sparticle]

I wanted to flag a potential issue with the IBM M1115.

I have an IBM M1115 that I cross flashed to LSI 9211-8i IT mode. I could not get the board to boot on 3 different machines until taping the 5+6 pins. I then cross flashed it to a LSI 9211-8i IT mode. I wanted to use it to boot from on a small nas server with 4 drives.

I can get the card to boot, flash, configure etc. but cannot get it to boot from one of the connected HDD's even though the card recognises the HDD as a boot drive. At the point the card bios recognises and identifies the boot drive as being able to boot the system it says that the boot rom was successfully loaded and then it just sits there with that message on the screen.

All I can do at that point is reboot the machine. I have left it overnight thinking maybe it was some kind of time out to no avail.

If I boot the system from the network or CD etc. Linux sees the drive and can install to it etc. It is correctly recognised as a SAS2008 device using the MPT driver all seems well. If I just wanted to use the card for storage then it would be perfect. However I want to boot from a drive connected to it.

But I cannot boot any drive from it. I was hoping others had this issue. Do the taped pins have anything to do with booting capability of the cards? I know a lot of people just use these to provide mass storage and boot from other sources.

I have tried all combination of settings in the card. I have tried IT & IR mode with the mptsas2.rom, I tried disabling/enabling the interrupt etc.

It just gets to the point of booting and sits there. Disabling the BIOS on the card allows the system to boot through but of course not boot from any connected drive.

At this point I seem to be out of options. Many many hours spent on this already. I have other M1015 cards and Sun/Dell cards that all went perfectly. It currently has the pins taped to allow it to boot/flash etc. in my test machine.

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks
Spart

 

[Stanza]

Maybe your bios doesn't have enough bootrom space left for it to properly load up

Go into bios and disable anything and everything you have no need for.

Eg serial port, extra Sata ports, onboard sound etc etc.

Also double check the boot order in the bios.... That the bios is actually set to boot from the lsi card

.

 

[sparticle]

Maybe your bios doesn't have enough bootrom space left for it to properly load up

Go into bios and disable anything and everything you have no need for.

Eg serial port, extra Sata ports, onboard sound etc etc.

Also double check the boot order in the bios.... That the bios is actually set to boot from the lsi card

.

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes, tried disabling everything not needed. Reset cmos etc.

Some interesting findings. After flashing the card it can be booted without the tape on 5+6! Not sure why.

On a dell SFF 745 (a test machine). Boots perfectly without any conifg (expected behaviour as in IT mode) into the OS on the selected boot device even boots from dvd also connected as an alternate boot device.So works exactly as it should.

Finally ruled out card as the issue.

On a ASUS NSE II - card boots everything looks ok but stops after boot rom loaded successfully message. I can hear the drive clicking like the card is trying to boot it. Can't get any further with this setup. Taped or not makes no difference.

If I power off the drives connected to the card and boot. System boots perfectly. Must be either a setting or ASUS compatibility. M1015 searching shows others have had great success with these cards and ASUS Nvidia based boards. So no idea where to go now as that board was going to be the system server board. It has lots of ram and a Xeon L5430 installed.


I have a Dell CS24 currently running 4x4TB WD Reds on a sun card that I also flashed to 9211-8i. Just ordered a longer cable as the sun card exits at the rear and the IBM in the top. So will try replacing the sun with the M1115 when it gets here.

The other board I tried it in is a Gigabyte EP45C-DS3R not tried it since it was reflashed and untaped. BUt originally it would not boot without tape and then would not boot any connected drives similar to the ASUS. More testing to do on this.

Cheers
Spart

 

[sparticle]

Update on this.

I took the sun card (9211-8i) out of the Dell CS24 an put the flashed IBM M1115 in and it worked perfectly without any configuration and booted a connected boot drive fine. All drive showed up as 6 Gb/s and the adapter as a SAS2008 fusion board.

The sun card works perfectly in the Dell SFF 745 as did the IBM M1115. It shows the same problems as the M1115 in the ASUS NSEII board. It will not boot from a connected drive and will not boot past the Boot Rom loaded successfully message. If I reflash it without the rom and boot from usb or CD. Linux sees the card fine and all connected devices and works fine. So ok for just mass storage but not for booting from.

Tried multiple FW from 16 onwards to latest. No difference.

If anyone has a workaround for these issues please let me know. I hope this information helps others.

Cheers
Spart

 

[Aluminum]

...
Do the taped pins have anything to do with booting capability of the cards?
...
It currently has the pins taped to allow it to boot/flash etc. in my test machine.

So I see a big red flag with a possible answer, please explain further, does this card not work in the desired system without pins blocked?

 

[sparticle]

So I see a big red flag with a possible answer, please explain further, does this card not work in the desired system without pins blocked?

With or without pins blocked it will not get past the Boot room loaded successfully message in the Gigabyte P45 and ASUS NSEII boards. Removing the sas rom allows the card and machine to boot (external boot device not on the card) perfectly and see all the attached drives in Linux using the native mpt driver.

In the Dell SFF 745 test machine it boots and works perfectly without tape and in the dell CS24 rackmount server it boots and works perfectly.

So some kind of incompatibility with the Gigabyte and ASUS boards.Both the sun and the IBM cards show same behaviour.


Different question. I was a bit confused by the Boot settings in the card config program. You can set it to disabled. BIOS only or BIOS and OS. Whats the point of this. If you set it to anything other than BIOS or BIOS and OS then it won't boot a connected drive as the boot rom will not be loaded to pass the boot drive to the system BIOS. Just wondered if anyone can demystify this.

 

[Aluminum]

So out of curiosity looks like these are the smbus pins that people block out when there are bios issues with some configurations, seems pretty common on some LSI cards and wifi cards(?) for whatever reason.

I think a side effect of this is that it partially hides the card from the boot sequence, so not being able to properly boot a volume on the card during this is a likely consequence.

 

[sparticle]

So out of curiosity looks like these are the smbus pins that people block out when there are bios issues with some configurations, seems pretty common on some LSI cards and wifi cards(?) for whatever reason.

I think a side effect of this is that it partially hides the card from the boot sequence, so not being able to properly boot a volume on the card during this is a likely consequence.

Not sure how that relates to the non taped issues. And of course this card untaped boots perfectly in the dell SFF 745! Just not in the Gigabyte P45 and ASUS NSEII. I also have an older Gigabyte G41 based board that I might try it on. The Gigabyte EP45C-DS3R is an absolutely stonking board in all other respects.

Cheers
Spart