Xeon D-1541 Quanta storage servers on ebay

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tekmunki

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Aug 4, 2019
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I actually just ran sas3flash via eufi to try and update the 3008 card, then updated the bios to 3A14, then did the BMC via freedos. Which is totally out of the order I was supposed to, the only issue I ran into was the system locked up when I erased the LSI firmware with sas3flash in the efi shell. I thought I bricked it and restarted the system anyways after it had already erased the flash. It booted fine and I just finished the update commands and it's all working again with the updated firmware on the 3008 card. Still trying to figure out how to update the expander but so far the only thing I've found is via console using the usb connector on the board but it was for a different expander from QCT but I'm thinking it might be a similar process.

PDF for the other expander update

I can't seem to get MegaCli to detect the expander under freenas even though the drives all populate and work fine. It might be the old version of MegaCli that freenas has built-in (Ver 8.07.14 Dec 16, 2013) but I'm not familar with using MegaCli so it might be the commands I'm using too.
 
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frsp_1

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Apr 13, 2018
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New York, NY
tekmunki said:
I actually just ran sas3flash via eufi to try and update the 3008 card, then updated the bios to 3A14, then did the BMC via freedos. Which is totally out of the order I was supposed to, the only issue I ran into was the system locked up when I erased the LSI firmware with sas3flash in the efi shell. I thought I bricked it and restarted the system anyways after it had already erased the flash. It booted fine and I just finished the update commands and it's all working again with the updated firmware on the 3008 card. Still trying to figure out how to update the expander but so far the only thing I've found is via console using the usb connector on the board but it was for a different expander from QCT but I'm thinking it might be a similar process.

PDF for the other expander update

I can't seem to get MegaCli to detect the expander under freenas even though the drives all populate and work fine. It might be the old version of MegaCli that freenas has built-in (Ver 8.07.14 Dec 16, 2013) but I'm not familar with using MegaCli so it might be the commands I'm using too.
Click to expand...
FWIW, I didn't actually try to update to the 3A14 BIOS as I saw that bit about firmware requirements in the release notes. I was not able to get MegaCli, LSA, or StorCli to recognize the expander either. I also had the lockup issue after erasing the SAS controller's firmware and had to reboot before being able to flash with the new firmware. I'm glad it seems to be working with the 3A14 BIOS, please let us know if you run into any issues with the expander while under load.
 
Schoondoggy

Schoondoggy

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Apr 26, 2017
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tjk said:
Hey, just wanted to see if you were able to find out how to update the expander fw?
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We have been short staffed with COVID-19, its been a little tough getting people to respond. We only had to update these for a short period of time, as new product is shipping with the latest firmware. One of our techs seems to recall that we need to configure the SAS controller with IR firmware to get the expander to update through the controller. I will see what else I can find.
 
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YuanyangX

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May 17, 2019
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WA, USA
tjk said:
Hey, just wanted to see if you were able to find out how to update the expander fw?
Click to expand...
While waiting for the package, I tried to find something related to expander FW update.
In the zip file "SD1Q-1ULH 12G-EXPANDER Expander 1.08 2019/12/19 765 KB", the release note (line 137) says:
Firmware update:
1. Use "fdl" command to update FW through console port.
2. Use "MegaCli" tool to update FW through Raid Card.
(Please download tool from Avago website. And refer S2PH firmware download SOP.)​
S2PH is used in "QuantaGrid D51PH-1ULH".
So, I downloaded the expander firmware (D51PH-1ULH 12G-EXPANDER Expander 1.0.8 2019/12/31 1.05 MB) from this product, then found there is a "S2PH_Software_Spec_0.5.docx" inside the zip file.

Then, I found something. Please refer to the attached screenshot.

I don't know how reliable this doc is. And I'm not an export of server parts/components. But I hope this could provide something useful for your research.
 

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YuanyangX

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tjk

tjk

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Mar 3, 2013
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YuanyangX said:
If using HBA, it seems one possible option would to use console port then. The doc above mentioned how to connect to expander through console port of S2PH expander.
Click to expand...
Spent a few hours trying to get this working with storcli, keeps giving me an error, see attached. The enc ID is 12 and 252, tried both, no go.

Anyone else have any luck yet?
 

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tekmunki

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Aug 4, 2019
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Welp, came home to find the server was powered off and when I try to power it back up it no longer post with no output to a monitor or IPMI console. The only thing I can find in the logs is a cryptic "Repeater_WR_Fail" everytime it tries to boot. All the sensors on the sensors page are lit up green with no other errors.



I've asked the seller for a replacement unit as I'm still within thier 30day warranty period. We'll see how this goes, hope it wasn't a $400 learning experience as I was really digging the 1U box.
 

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tjk

tjk

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tekmunki said:
Welp, came home to find the server was powered off and when I try to power it back up it no longer post with no output to a monitor or IPMI console. The only thing I can find in the logs is a cryptic "Repeater_WR_Fail" everytime it tries to boot. All the sensors on the sensors page are lit up green with no other errors.



I've asked the seller for a replacement unit as I'm still within thier 30day warranty period. We'll see how this goes, hope it wasn't a $400 learning experience as I was really digging the 1U box.
Click to expand...
Same here! Same error and no console output, even after factory reset. Let me know what the seller says, pretty pissed myself. I wonder if these had problems and why the original company sent them to a scrap reseller.
 
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tekmunki

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Aug 4, 2019
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tjk said:
Same here! Same error and no console output, even after factory reset. Let me know what the seller says, pretty pissed myself. I wonder if these had problems and why the original company sent them to a scrap reseller.
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Just got it to boot again by downgrading to the BIOS FW it came with S1Q_3A12.02 after which the logs read the cmos was reset and it booted right up no more repeater write errors and freenas was able to boot after I went in and reselected the back drives for the boot device in BIOS. Once again the SATA detection in the 12x3.5" bays comes and goes after a reboot. Not sure how I feel about this thing, but I'm glad it's not a total paperweight until I hear from the seller.
 
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tekmunki

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Aug 4, 2019
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Another update, so it seems when the SATA drives don't show up it is only the 3.5" bays as the 4x2.5" seem to detect everytime on the old expander firmware. But it does seem like a timing issue for the detection like the expander FW release notes state as the change. On boot ups where the 3.5" bays are not detected, I can hot-plug the HDDs and they get detected then I can just "zpool online poolname" and all is right again. This thing just keeps finding weird quirks to keep me interested in it.


I wonder if there is a command I can just run to reset the SATA port like it states when I hot-plug the tray.
 
tjk

tjk

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Mar 3, 2013
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tekmunki said:
Just got it to boot again by downgrading to the BIOS FW it came with S1Q_3A12.02 after which the logs read the cmos was reset and it booted right up no more repeater write errors and freenas was able to boot after I went in and reselected the back drives for the boot device in BIOS. Once again the SATA detection in the 12x3.5" bays comes and goes after a reboot. Not sure how I feel about this thing, but I'm glad it's not a total paperweight until I hear from the seller.
Click to expand...
Reflashing with a12.02 worked for my nodes too. Did you try any of the other bios versions, if so, any luck?
 
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tekmunki

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Aug 4, 2019
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tjk said:
Reflashing with a12.02 worked for my nodes too. Did you try any of the other bios versions, if so, any luck?
Click to expand...
Looking over the FW notes there didn't seem to be any pressing need to go past the 12.02 and I didn't want to test it anymore so I threw my data SAS drives in it and called it a day.

I just gave up on updating the expander for now. It loads the SAS drives I was going to use it for anyways with no problems even after several reboots and the speeds are great so unless I run into new issues I'm just going to populate it with SAS for now. Furthest I got was getting the mprutil to show the enclosure but unfortunately, it seems it can only update the adapter's FW/BIOS. I even tried hooking into the onboard USB port on the mainboard but wasn't getting any output on the port probably have to short a jumper somewhere to utilize the port.

Doesn't seem to have any issues with smart stats or picking up the 2.5" drives ever. I just hope the cooling is sufficient as these drives tend to run hot in anything I've put them in. The R730 would constantly have the fans going but the quanta is still running quietly with the same drive temps I'm used to seeing so I guess time will tell.




 
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tjk

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bbqdt said:
also very tempted, but if they can't do plain sata reliably it's a no-go for me
Click to expand...
Right now SATA is unreliable at best. No one has been able to update the expander firmware yet to test otherwise.

So, if you need sata on the 3.5" slots, I'd skip this for now.
 
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