LSI 9211-8I IT mode stuck during loading

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EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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I can't speak for the A8N-SLI Premium (although I used to use one in my main workstation back in the day) but every motherboard I've used my ROM-less 9211-8i's in has recognised them just fine. Granted none of those have been PCIe 1.0 I don't think, but I don't think you'll have an issue.
 

swagler

Member
Feb 15, 2018
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Thanks again. I will try setting MB bios to SLI, and placing 9211 in second 16x slot. I confirmed floppy boot disk is bypassed als0. If test fixes MB bios I'll be able to flash 9211 to non-ROM, if not I'll have to find someone else to flash it.

Can someone confirm that attaching only (1) SSD to 9211-4i port (1) will draw from all 4 lanes ?
That's why I bought this card. If so, it may drive WD Blue 2tb HDD at max 150mb/s as well, with little loss to SSD.
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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Well, an LSI SAS 9211-4i isn't compatible with an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium. I created a MS-DOS 2.88mb bootable image, added sas2flsh & firmware, created a ISO and burned it to a CD. Slap the card in a 2011 Dell (which was compatible), and flashed it. Slapped it back in ASUS, got it booted into Windows, it froze loading drivers, booted a few times playing with bios... Tried updating drivers, it froze, it took the sas2**.sys, but still a SAS2004 FirePort (or something), instead of StorePort(or something). I think it should have been a SAS2008. Then connect SSD, booted and got DISK FAILURE. I figure I need to have PCIe drives listed in MB bios like LSI bios configuration. ASUS also wouldn't shut down, I had to turn off power supply. If I only wanted additional drives, it may have worked (with a few kinks), But I needed it to boot SSD. It a shame being MB has so many slots and features, but lacks an updated bios to utilize new add-in cards.
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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That's unfortunate. I think you have just seen first hand what happens when technology moves on and old hardware gets left behind. On the bright side, you now have justification for an upgrade :)
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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Ha, ha ,ha. This board has been a workhorse on XP & Win7. I play guitar thru 64-bit Audigy 2 platinum, kX 3552, Nuendo 64 @ 4ms latency, & plays 1080p H264 BluRay's beautifully. The only quirk is lack of Win7 nForce4 SATA II drivers w/trim. But yeah, to migrate to Win10 I'll need a new board.

I've seen posts verifying ASUS U3S6 PCIe SATA III, Adaptec 2240900-R PCIe SATA II & several other cards work on A8N. If other cards work in A8N, the conflict is LSI firmware & ROM. Maybe a legacy LSI firmware & ROM would do the trick? I plan to call LSI tech support.
 

pricklypunter

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The board I had was certainly a workhorse, and is actually still going strong pretending to be a print server at a friends place :)
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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pricklypunter- I've wasn't aware of Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe till last few weeks researching PCIe cards. I've always liked AMD, do you know of any newer boards that have 4+ PCIe and 3 PCI without onboard graphics similar to these old Asus?
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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I don't think you'll find anything made in the last 5 years with a PCI slot... although plenty of Ryzen boards with 7 PCIe slots.

Edit: I stand corrected, apparently Biostar make a Ryzen board with two PCI slots (couldn't find a block diagram on their site but don't think this'll be coming direct from the southbridge, there'd need to be a bridge chip in there somewhere). But if your aim is to use hardware like the audigy and whatnot under windows 10 I think you'll have your work cut out for you...
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Nope, I can't think of any board that I have seen in the last 5-10 years with that combination of expansion slots on it and no onboard graphics. I think the best you'll likely find now will be something like the Gigabyte APU boards with 2+1 slots, or the Biostar that @EffrafaxOfWug mentioned. I gave my Audigy away last year to a pal that wanted to do some recording, but my favourite sound card of all time was the AWE32, built in the days when men were men an all that... :D
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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Yes, that's what I've feared about Windows 10. I also like my NETGEAR WPN311 Wireless PCI card, it's one the few cards great for debugging the airwaves. Years ago I build a 20' aerial on my roof in Vegas, for over 10 years I got free 10mb internet picking between 20 networks in my neighborhood. The point being, these PCI cards have worked outstanding and don't desire tossing them to migrate to Windows 10. I'm also waiting to see how 10 matures, the interface looks likes it's going down hill to me. I program in C++ since 2004, wrote a program 'Taskbar Control' and 'CPULoad' customizing entire taskbar. I'd like to have whack at 10, but my system is great now.
 

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swagler

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nthu9280- Nice boards. I don't know much about server boards. While I've liked AMD, looks like Intel's making best chipsets.
 

nthu9280

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Feb 3, 2016
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These are desktop not server boards.
X10SAE - is for lga1150 CPUs (4th gen i5/i7)
X11SAE is for lga1151 CPUs. 6th & 7th gen i5/i7


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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Thanks. After closer look I see they're workstation, specs mention being sever grade... I think I've become a dinosaur using same gear so long. I need to start studying up and reading reviews. There are just so many boards, and dread upgrading.
 

swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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LSI_9211_840_PRO_512.jpg

Well, I got 9211-4i working, and booted to SSD now. I flashed the very first firmware v7 (that offered IT Mode) with ROM. I can configure in LSI bios, afterwards MB screen comes up again allowing to enter bios. It added a strange, incomplete (long name) drive device, so I ordered below add-in drive and above WD drive. I still freezes or states driver incompatible with any LSI Storport driver other than Win7 supplied SAS2 2004 Spitfire driver. Searching, I can't find any "Spitfire vs Storport" so to even know direction to update.

Unresolved problems: Magician 5.2 nor CrystalDiskInfo 7.1 detect SSD (smart in firmware 7?) ! HWiNFO64 5.72 detects, listing all manufacture data, and confirms attached at 6gb/s. TrimCheck 0.7 reports trim is NOT working. System still doesn't reboot or shutdown, needs PSU switched off.

This is rough! I never seen so much technical data bullshit, yet lacking concise real-work configuration guides...
I guess, back to massive research. I don't think tech support can help. I wish there was a concise firmware version history, would save me time flashing forward and backward to find newest firmware compatible.

EDIT: I flashed LSI using 2114it.bin v20.00.07.00(newest) and mptsas2.rom v7.11.00.00(oldest) and it worked. I also found, and verified, the sas2 2004 Spitfire -StorPort x64 driver reqyuires 4GB of RAM. I had matching sticks removed for fear of pressing memory controller, but what the hell. I then loaded version 20 drivers perfectly. Smart still not detecting and no shutdown, but making progress.

EDIT: CrystalDiskMark 6 results. Looks like 9211-4i is drawing from two v1.1 lanes.
 
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swagler

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Feb 15, 2018
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I called LSI Support, and they've created a case regarding my configuration needing mptsas2.rom v7.11.00.00 to operate, where v7.39.02.00 halts, and 9211-4i causing system CPU, fans... hanging at shutdown, and TrimCheck returning TRIM not working.

I called Samsung Support, they confirmed Magician does not detect/support drives attached to HBA/SATA Controllers and have no plans to incorporate.

Broadcom states lsi_sas2.sys StorPort drivers support TRIM in IT Mode, and Support Tech concurred.
Broadcom Limited

I bought 9211-4i because it purported to support TRIM!

References:
Apparently we need the SSD supports "deterministic read after trim / read zero after trim" ... I bought a 840 Pro 256GB .... and TRIM is OK !
Deterministic read ZEROs after TRIM - Samsung Community - 192356

I received some help on the linux-scsi list where it was suggested that for trim to work with LSI controllers, deterministic read after trim (read zero) is needed. I switched to the Samsung Pro SSD's. They do have deterministic read after trim and work correctly with LSI controllers. So mpt2sas does support TRIM when deterministic read after trim is supported on the SSD.

I don't know if only only Linux has successful TRIM on LSI controllers? Hopefully through open email correspondence with LSI Techs I 'll get to the bottom of whether TRIM is actually functions on Windows. I don't know whether TrimChech has trouble as other software does interfacing with LSI controller. Found HD Tune Pro 5.70 which totally supports SSD/HHD SMART and additional utilities on LSI controller, and believe EASEUS Partition Master can be used in place of Magician for SSD Provisioning...
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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I reckon that any support that LSI/ Broadcom will be able to give you, will always be on the edge of what's possible. I seriously doubt that you'll have any satisfactory use out of that combination of mainboard and raid card, especially being limited to PCIe 1.1 while trying to use SSD's. You really need a much more up to date mainboard to take advantage of it and provide reliability. I certainly wouldn't trust the setup with essential or crucial data without a serious backup plan in place and would caution you against doing so, data loss or corruption here looks like a real possibility :)
 

swagler

Member
Feb 15, 2018
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pricklypunter- Glad to hear from you. Well, the system is running great, both 512GB SSD and 2TB HDD are attached, not slowing SSD. After upgrade to 4GB RAM there's not been one anomaly while running, only manually having to turn off PSU after Windows shuts down. I constantly use R-Drive Image 6 to backup C Image, and Second Copy 9 to backup all project data on D to multiple drives. BUT, TrimCheck not confirming TRIM is worrisome. LSI Tech just got back to me stating he's testing different boards... but hasn't duplicated ROM and shutdown issue yet. But, at lest he's on it, and wants me to update him on my progress. He actually asked me for link to TrimCheck, I hate to think TrimCheck may retract their claims LSI IT HBA's support TRIM. I researched a month before buying the 9211-4i on the basis it supported TRIM in IT Mode, we'll see.