No leds on Backplane SAS-825TQ

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Morpheus187

New Member
May 8, 2017
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Hi
It's me again with another issue, I've never used backplanes and quite new to it, so maybe I'm just overlooking something.

The specs first
CASE: SC825TQ-R720LPB
Backplane: BPN-SAS-825TQ ( 8-port 2U TQ (W/ AMI 9072) backplane, support up to 8x 3.5-inch SAS/SATA HDD )
Board: X11SSH-CTF
Controller: LSI3008 controller for 8 SAS3 (12 Gbps) ports; RAID 0,1,10 ( Flashed to IT-Mode )

Disks: 8x Various size SATA test disks. ( old 250 gb's , 2 TB's etc )


My main problem is that I got no LED activity or status, everything is just dark on the backplane, when I start it up, everything flashes up red for a second and then it goes dark. All disks are however recognized an working correctly in 2 setup scenarios.


The Backplane is jumpered to SGPIO mode ( I've triple checked all the jumpers )

First Setup
I've connected the Backplane with 2x SFF-8643-4xSATA Cables ( L5-00221-00 ) WITHOUT connecting the SGPIO cable that is mounted within that cable.
--> All disks are working, no leds

Second Setup
I've connected the Backplane with 2x SFF-8643-4xSATA Cables ( L5-00221-00 ) WITH connecting the SGPIO cable that is mounted within that cable.
--> only 3 disks recognized, no leds
--> Even if I turn around the SGPIO cable, in case I've plugged it in incorrectly the result is the same.

Third Setup
I've connected the Backplane with 2x SFF-8643-4xSATA Cables ( L5-00221-00 ) WITHOUT connecting the SGPIO cable that is mounted within that cable, instead I connected the 2 SGPIO ports with the corresponding 2 SGPIO port on the mainboard, with a separate SGPIO cable.
--> All disks are working, no leds


Research:

I've seen that the backplane has SATA Activity LED 10 Pin connector, although my mainboard has no matching connector for that.

I've downloaded a sas3ircu utility which seems to be working correctly and I can also give orders to light up a drive, but nothing happens.

Conclusion:

Maybe I'm just doing something wrong or SATA disks are not really supported by the backplane correctly.

I open to any ideas

Regards
Morpheus187
 
M

Morpheus187

New Member
May 8, 2017
14
1
1
38
I found the solution to the LED problem

Layer 8 Error.
Don't be a moron like me :(

I've tested hours and hours with cabling, and now I just put the "productive" disks in and started to move some files and when I walked into the room.. the leds were blinking.

Obviously I never put "enough" load on the test disks to make the leds blink.

the sas3ircu locate still doesn't work but that's another issue I guess.

Hope someone finds this information useful if he runs into the same "issue"

I now go hide under a rock.
 
BLinux

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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artofserver.com
I'm actually very curious about this. I'm new to supermicro components too, and I have a 825 with 825TQ that I have temporarily (going to sell soon) and was testing it out before I listed for sale. I noticed the same thing as you did:

1. plugin drive, on initial spin-up and disk read by OS to recognize disk, I see the "top" LED flicker green and then go dark.
2. when i run a disk testing tool called badblocks, the top LED lights up as green to indicate activity.

so, what does the bottom LED do? and it is strange that the top led just goes dark. i'm using a very plain 8087->4x SATA breakout cable with no SGPIO or anything else, connected to onboard LSI IT mode controller. I was wondering if I needed a cable with additional wires to activate other LED too... since like you, sas2ircu did nothing.

on other non-supermicro systems, what I typically see is an LED that indicates drive has power and stays solid as long as the drive is drawing power. if there's a failure, it might go amber on some systems. and there's a 2nd led that flickers with disk activity.

would be curious what else you find out...
 
R

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Usually on SM backplanes the blue drive light is off for SATA and on for SAS drives. Blinking indicates activity on both drive types.
 
R

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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upload_2017-5-12_10-36-17.png

From my 846 manual. The 825's is not as detailed just stating 'error indicator'
 
R

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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Blue ones - I'd assume the behavior would be similar though, but never had an 825;)
 
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