Supermicro X9S series motherboards & PCI-e controller compatability

[survive]

Hi guys,

I was just wondering what kind of luck other users have been having with the Supermicro X9S series socket 1155 motherboards and add-on PCI-e controller cards. I have 2 of these boards and 4 out of the 5 cards I have tried have each required me to contact Supermicro support about having corrections made to the BIOS (I have needed a new BIOS issued for almost every card I've tried!).

So far the problem cards have been:

IBM BR10i SAS controller
Adaptec 3405 RAID Controller
Intel "PT" quad port NIC
Intel "PT" dual port NIC

The only card I've tried that worked without issue has been an Intel "CT" NIC.

Supermicro support has generally been pretty responsive & cooperative with getting these fixed BIOS's to me, but it took almost a month to get the quad-port "PT" NIC working and that required them adding in some specific options that forced (I believe) the entire system to revert all the PCI-e slots to run in 1x mode. It's certainly been a lot more trouble making the system work reliably with all these common controller cards than I expected and I'm kind of concerned about future BIOS updates because I'm not sure the fixes I needed will actually be rolled into future BIOS releases.

So tell me guys, if you have one of these boards what sort of luck have you had?

-Will

 

[john4200]

I have an X9SCM-iiF that I am using with 3 IBM M1015 HBA cards. Initially I was getting error messages during POST :

  MPT BIOS Fault 01h encountered at adapter PCI(03h,00h,00h)

  MPT BIOS Fault 01h encountered at adapter PCI(02h,00h,00h)

  LSI Corporation MPT SAS2 BIOS
  MPT2BIOS-7.23.01.00 (2011.11.17)
  Copyright 2000-2011 LSI Corporation.

  MPT BIOS Fault 01h encountered at adapter PCI(03h,00h,00h)

  MPT BIOS Fault 01h encountered at adapter PCI(02h,00h,00h)
  Initializing..

Which seems to indicate that two of the three M1015s were failing to initialize. So I played with some of the BIOS settings and I eventually got those error messages to go away by changing to:

Advanced...Chipset...Integrated IO Configuration settings...Detect Non-Compliant Device = Enabled

It was disabled by default. Enabling it stopped the error messages and it has been working without issue for a while now.

 

[survive]

Hi john4200,

That's one of the options they instructed me to change in the BIOS they sent me. Here are the 3 options they had me change to get the quad-port "PT" card working:

the BIOS under Advanced -> Chipset configuration -> Integrated IO Configuration:

1. PCI Express Port - Gen X to GEN1 (Default: Auto)
2. Detect Non-Compliance Device to Enable (Default: Disabled)
3. De-emphasis Control to -6dB (Default:-3.5dB)

Any chance you can check & see if those 3 options are included in your BIOS? The "iiF" is one of the newest X9S boards but I would expect that all of them will share a common BIOS once the next revision is released. It would be of great comfort to know that those 3 options are included in a proper factory release (I don't want to face being stuck on a one-off BIOS with no future updates).

-Will

 

[john4200]

I think I saw (1) and I don't think I saw (3). But you can just download the manual and check if you are still interested.

 

[RimBlock]

Interesting.

Having just had quite a bit of 'fun' with two S1200BTL Intel boards and PCIe cards, I know your pain.

I am surprised on the Supermicro X9S series as I hve build client machines based on the X9SCM, X9SCL and X9SCI-LN4, usually with a single M1015 without issues.

If find when pushing the bounderies things start to come a bit undone. 3x M1015s in my S1200BTL just would not go. I also had to play with the order of installing the cards and reboots for my current S1200BTL with the HP P812, IBM M1015 and Intel Quad ET. Had to update the BIOS, remove all cards, default settings in bios, boot, install the P812, boot, install the M1015, boot, change the M1015 slot, boot, install he quad ET, Boot and it is now all looking good even after reboot or cold power on.

Good luck.

RB

 

[Patrick]

I'm working on something for exactly this issue (but a little bit more of an expanded view.) Still interviewing developers but should help a lot.

 

[survive]

I think I saw (1) and I don't think I saw (3). But you can just download the manual and check if you are still interested.

Hi john4200,

An excellent suggestion....

I took a look and 2 o the 3 options are there, but "De-emphasis Control" is missing. I'll have to ask my contact at Supermicro i it will be included.

-Will

 

[survive]

Hi guys,

For what it's worth Supermicro has released their 2.0b BIOS for the X9SC boards which seems to have sorted out my problems with the quad-port Intel NIC's.

-Will

 

[FredFunk]

I have the following server spec running Solaris 11.1.

The M1015 cards (flashed IT mode, v14) are in Slot2 (PCI-E 2.0) and Slot 6 (PCI-E 3.0), with 4 SATA drives connected to each card. The problem is the system appears to only detect 1 M1015 card, so only 4 of my drives are visible. Whereas I can run all 8 drives from either card from either Slot, but not when both cards are installed. I have raised this with Supermicro, but no response yet.

Supermicro X9SAE Motherboard
Intel Xeon E3-1275v2 Processor
4 x 8GB DDR3-1333 ECC x8 SERVER SDRAM Module (HYNIX ORIGINAL)
2 x IBM ServeRAID M1015 SAS RAID Controller
8 x SATA Hitachi drives 7k4000 3TB
850W Corsair unit

Adapter SAS9211-8i
PCI Slot 10
PCI Address 01:00
MPT Firmware Revision 14.00.00.00-IT
SAS Address 500605B0:04EF1210
NVDATA Version 0E.03.00.04

Adapter SAS9211-8i
PCI Slot 21
PCI Address 01:00
MPT Firmware Revision 14.00.00.00-IT
SAS Address 500605B0:056A8650
NVDATA Version 0E.03.00.04

Is this a known problem with this new board?

 

[CaroBarcode]

So professional! Thanks for posting this information.