LSI Avago 9300-8i Firmware Bios update problems.

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DigitalAddiction

New Member
Nov 2, 2022
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Hello
I purchased a new LSI Avago 9300-8i (SAS3008) SAS/HBA card. I'm struggling to update the firmware and bios. I admit I don't have much experience with this type of hardware. The original firmware revision on the card was version 5.x.IT. However, I found a guide from here that did help me understand the UEFI process a little better. After a long struggle I was able to get the firmware up to revision 14.x.IT successfully. But I wanted to continue to the latest revision 17.x IT. But I think I messed up somewhere. I'm getting the error No SAS Adapter found, Limited commands! I've kind of put myself in a bad situation I've tried so many things I have confused myself. I'm not sure what I did wrong exactly, According to what I can find on this error I've either bricked it or it's missing a SAS-Address. I would greatly appreciate help from someone who understands this hardware. I'm at a loss. I did write down the SAS ADDRESS and took pictures of that information on screen.

The hardware I'm using:
Motherboard: Gigabyte AM4 x570S
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5700G
 

Sogndal94

Senior IT Operations Engineer
Nov 7, 2016
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Norway
Did you wipe the chip? What i would do, is wipe the chip, then reflash with the bios and firmware you want. Then add the sas adress. You can follow @BLinux youtube video for most of the flash prosess. Sas adress is added with «sas3flash.efi -o -sasadd xxxxxxxxx»
 
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DigitalAddiction

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Nov 2, 2022
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I did use the erase command and I successfully updated from reversion 5 to reversion 14. Then I attempted to move from version 14x to the latest version 17x. Following the same guide and process I seemed to have missed a step when I was supposed to provide the sas-address I rebooted when I shouldn't have.

Could you help me understand a little more about the sas2flash and sas3flash. I found information about using a much older version and that would allow me to communicate with the card again. I can't find a sas2flash in any of the firmware packages available. (Btw during the last few days all the files were missing from the broadcom repository.) Are they mostly uniersal except for the environment they're executed on?

Thanks again for the reply.
 

Sogndal94

Senior IT Operations Engineer
Nov 7, 2016
114
72
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Norway
I did use the erase command and I successfully updated from reversion 5 to reversion 14. Then I attempted to move from version 14x to the latest version 17x. Following the same guide and process I seemed to have missed a step when I was supposed to provide the sas-address I rebooted when I shouldn't have.

Could you help me understand a little more about the sas2flash and sas3flash. I found information about using a much older version and that would allow me to communicate with the card again. I can't find a sas2flash in any of the firmware packages available. (Btw during the last few days all the files were missing from the broadcom repository.) Are they mostly uniersal except for the environment they're executed on?

Thanks again for the reply.
sas2flash is for 6 Gb/sec cards(SAS2 cards), sas3flash is for 12 Gb/sec cards (SAS3). so i think you need to use sas3flsh.

What erase level did you do?

i think " sas3flash.efi -o -e 6" would have been more than plenty, and you would have keept your SAS adress.

What happends if you do: ?

"sas3flash.efi -o -sasadd XXXXXXXXXXXX "

If not, have you tried to reflash the card from the start again?

Please note: I am in no way a flashing expert, or even frequently flashing cards. :)
 
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DigitalAddiction

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Nov 2, 2022
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Thanks again for the response. This is where I'm stuck.

sas3flash.efi -o -sasadd 5006xxxxxxxxx (Thankfully I wrote down and took pictures of all those numbers)

No Avago SAS Adapters found! Limited Command Set Available.
Error: Command not allowed without an adapter!
Error: Couldn't Create command -sassadd
Exiting Program.
 

Sogndal94

Senior IT Operations Engineer
Nov 7, 2016
114
72
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Norway
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DigitalAddiction

New Member
Nov 2, 2022
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I have success! I can't thank you enough for the learning experience. The firmware revision and bios are now on the latest version. After shutting down the machine and removing the card, it booted normally when I attempted again. I followed the YouTube video you posted and that worked perfectly. The video had a slight difference in the command string that was different from the guides I was following. Thank you again for taking the time to help me out.
 
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marcodv

New Member
Oct 10, 2022
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Hi guys, i'm having issues with the same card model.. but i don't know if the card is bricked or not, i try to explain.
I checked all the threads and I think my problem is kinda different.
Basically I had issues with lsi 9300-8e recognised as bad from the OS so I tried to throubleshoot a bit.
First thing I want to say is that the card has no led activity on when I power up the Machine, this made me think that the card was bricked immediately, then I made a scan with megarec and the software find the controller installed in the system (sas3.. . exe/ efi etc don't).
Now I try to to run commands as I saw in the posts from other people, but when i launch

1)megarec -writesbr 0 sbrempty.bin (i got the .bin file from a thread on this forum)

i receive the message "CHIP IS IN FUSION MODE" without errors, but it's stuck there and i can't use the keyboard, i have to reboot the machine.

I waited just a couple of mins, i didn't wait hours tell me if i have to.

Same thing happens when i do

2)megarec -cleanflash 0

"CHIP IS IN FUSION MODE" , can't use ms-dos environment. It looks like it's doing something but i guess the result should pop-up immediately.

If i try to flash the firmware .bin files with sas3flash.exe after a reboot with

sas3flash.exe -o -f 93008e.bin -b mptsas3.rom

The process stops without errors at "Chip is in RESET state. Attempting host boot".

I'm using the megarec version found there
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/supermicro-3108-bricked.32418/
and it's the only thing that is able to scan and find the hardware connected on the PCI slot, all other software don't recognize the card.

As i said there is no LED activity when i boot or when i run commands, is this definetly dead(even if i can see it in the software and the heatsink is hot)?

Thanks for any kind of help.
 

marcodv

New Member
Oct 10, 2022
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Update:
I mounted the card in a old legacy system and now megarec commands runs.
I formatted and rewrite sbr now i need to flash the card.
The issue with the flashing still remains... when i run sas3flsh.exe -listall i can't see the card, instead i get a pop up asking me to load a firmware.
If i type the firmware name i get another error.
Basically i'm always in the same state with "CHIP is in reset state attempting host boot"..
 

DigitalAddiction

New Member
Nov 2, 2022
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Hello Marcodv.
I can completely understand how frustrating this can be. This forum was a huge help. I can try to help but I'm pretty new to this and it was a long process for me. So I apologize.

I have not experienced the chip in fusion mode status and I have not used Megarec. I can tell you that I have tried many many dos methods without success. I'm not sure if you can try the UEFI method again but it's worth a shot. Make sure you have the files you need on a usb drive. Those files should be the Installer_PX_for_UEFI which contains sas3flash.efi and SAS3_UEFI_BSD_PX which has the bios mptx64sas3.rom and finally the 9300_8i_Package_PX_IR_IT_firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows which has the firmware and mptsas3.rom bios.

Once you have those files on a usb drive attempt to boot from the usb drive as a temporary device uefi. Verify you can see those files on the usb drive. "ls for directory listing" I used sas3flash.efi -list Try to verify the drive and directory you're working in because I had that same issue where it prompted you for a firmware but it's not looking in the root directory where I thought it was.

Also I follow this video
I followed the same commands he used. I highly recommend it!

sas3flash.efi -c 0 -o -e 6 ( The first guides I followed never specified the controller number -c 0 )
sas3flash.efi -c 0 -o -f SAS9300_8e_IT.bin -b mptsas3.rom -b mpt3x64.rom


Let us know what happens.
 

Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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You can flash these cards from within MSM. It's so easy even your mother could do it.
 

Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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New York City
www.glaver.org
The issue with the flashing still remains... when i run sas3flsh.exe -listall i can't see the card, instead i get a pop up asking me to load a firmware.
If i type the firmware name i get another error.
Basically i'm always in the same state with "CHIP is in reset state attempting host boot"..
These cards have embedded CPUs. If you erase the flash and reset the card, that's about the same as "No boot device found - press F1 to retry or F2 for setup" on a PC with the hard drive disconnected.

And it is generally about as easy to recover from. The controller is sitting in a boot wait expecting firmware to arrive on the host port.

Where you run into problems is that older versions of the sasXflash utility don't understand newer cards, and newer versions of the utility are a lot pickier about cross-flashing. So it can be a bit of trial and error to find the right version for your card. Once you do that, if you give the utility the correct name (and path!) to the proper firmware image, it will be downloaded to the card and the card will go into the Run state (you can tell because the heartbeat LED on the card begins to blink slowly). But that image is in the RAM of the controller and hasn't been written to flash - it is like booting your PC from a CD-ROM and then removing the disc. So you still need to flash it. That's normally the next step in sasXflash after a host download.

Sometimes you have to run one version of the flash utility to do the host download and then a different version to actually do the flash (without any reboots or resets in between).
 
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DocJuan

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Feb 24, 2023
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Hi. I recently have the MPT fault 5 error and wont boot. I also have the 9300-8i. I wanted to flash the card to get it working but I cant find the latest firmware on the product site. Any info? Thank you
 

DocJuan

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Feb 24, 2023
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See link in prior post to 16.00.12.00.
sorry but what link are you refering to. I am new on this stuff. Ive been running in circles. Tried sas3flash.exe but cannot find the card. Is there a step by step guide on this one. Where can I find the necessary files for the update? I dont know where to start.
 
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