Updated LSI SAS 9201-16i, now can't boot on any PC. I am in hell.

S

silkshadow

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Aug 9, 2010
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I got a brand new HBA SAS 9201-16i I was excited to get. I put it on a non-production play around machine to test how it works yesterday. Specs:

SAS 9201-16i
Gigabyte ga-p35-ds4
Intel core i7
16GB DDR2

I installed it and hooked up a bunch of drives to it and booted. Everything was great. Did multiple reads/writes and so forth. Today I decided to flash the bios and firmware upgrade (9201_16i_Package_P12_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows). It then all went to hell.

Now the system will not boot. It posts, then the SAS 9201-16i bios comes up. It detects all the drives. Then it says "LSI corporation MPT2 boot rom successfully loaded!" and the system freezes.

I can control-C and enter the SAS 9201-16i's configuration and make any changes. The system boots fine when I remove the card.

The real serious problem is that I cannot access my motherboard's bios. I cannot boot off of USB stick, cd or floppy drive. So I cannot flash the card to an older bios or firmware. The whole system simply won't go past the SAS 9201-16i's bios. I've now put it in 3 other computers and had the same problem (2 other Gigabyte mobos and a MSI).

I've tried playing with the settings. Even disabling the card from being controlled by the card's bios. I read here: http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle16578.aspx. So I've removed the card to get into the mobo bios and did exactly those things, and put the card back. It didn't help. I have a ticket open with LSI, however its my first go with them and I have no idea if they will be helpful or when they will get back to me.

The maddening thing is the card seems to be working fine otherwise. Its detecting all the drives and, as I mentioned, I can go in and out of the card's bios settings. However the boot process just stops dead after the card's bios is loaded. I cannot get into my mobo's bios or into an UEFI shell (on one of the other PCs I tried it in that has UEFI bios ).

Is there anyway to flash this card back to the old bios/firmware? Anyone ever hot plug a PCIe card before? I'm wondering if I boot the system into a DOS prompt and then install the card if it will be recognized and I can flash it? Or is there anyway to disable the card's bios from hooking into 13h interrupt?

In short I am stuck and going nuts. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
 
Try disabling any roms you don't need on the motherboard, like nic rom's, or anything else, It might be an issue with too much rom space being used.

I have this issue on my older intel motherboards often, and have to disable the onboard scsi and nic roms to get all my pcix cards rom's to work and bootable.
 
Appreciate that man, thanks! I did try that, as LSI KB has that as a possible problem. I disabled everything just to test it.It didn't help :(.

LSI support is fast, kudos to them on that. They are suggesting its a bad flash and offering to RMA the board. As I am in the Philippines though, I am hoping to find a way to reflash this card instead of RMA. The time and cost its going to be to send this card back to them and get the replacement back to me is prohibitive.

Anyone ever try and hot plug in a PCie card before (ie turn on the PC, boot into dos, plug in the card)? Assuming it doesn't just fry the card and mobo, would the flash util even recognize the card?
 
Have you tried holding down the "End" key on your keyboard before the raid bios comes up,
this may bypass the option bios for the raid card and possibly let you boot.
 
Interesting alamone, thanks! Its 2:30am here now and the PC is in pieces as I was trying different motherboards I had lying around, so I am heading to bed, but I will give that a try tomorrow and post back. Thanks again!
 
Holding 'end' didn't work, I am sorry to say. Good idea though, never thought of that before, thanks!

I'm giving up and RMAing the card. LSI support has been really fast with replies and helpful so far, so that's good at least. Guess that shinny new card feeling is going to have to wait for a few weeks as I wait for the RMA process.

Thanks for the ideas everyone!
 
silkshadow said:
Holding 'end' didn't work, I am sorry to say. Good idea though, never thought of that before, thanks!

I'm giving up and RMAing the card. LSI support has been really fast with replies and helpful so far, so that's good at least. Guess that shinny new card feeling is going to have to wait for a few weeks as I wait for the RMA process.

Thanks for the ideas everyone!
Click to expand...
If it is acting the same way in multiple boards, it is most likely either a bad flash or a board failure (probably the former). Unfortunately, you will have to go the RMA route. One question, is this a retail pack 9201, or a third party model?
 
Some server boards give you the option to disable Option ROM per slot. If you have such a board you can try to bypass the card's BIOS this way.
 
Intel i3-2100t with supermicro board and ecc ram in
Openindiana reports single bit ecc functionality works.
 
mwroobel said:
One question, is this a retail pack 9201, or a third party model?
Click to expand...

Retail pack from buy.com.

omniscence said:
Some server boards give you the option to disable Option ROM per slot. If you have such a board you can try to bypass the card's BIOS this way.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the HBA cars do not have this option, only the raid cards do. I have 2 LSI/3ware raid cards which have this option. Thanks though!

lordsegan said:
Intel i3-2100t with supermicro board and ecc ram in
Openindiana reports single bit ecc functionality works.
Click to expand...

brutalizer said:
How does it report it? Do you run a command, or does it say during boot? I need to know when I buy ECC sticks.
Click to expand...

I am sorry, I am confused.:eek:

My RMA was approved and I will go through the process. It was a 3 day weekend here, sorry I was slow to get back to this thread, I was at the beach and got back today :).
 
This is a very old post but I am sad to not read any conclusion (after the RMA)

I did upgrade my own LSI from 7.5.0.0 to 7.29.0.0 to solve a "warning" displayed the end of the initialization:(

Bad idea... Now, I don't have the warning anymore and the initialization completes successfully, but my PC doesn't continue to boot anymore. I.e.: it's blocked on the "Load Menu" boot sequence (As I can read on my LCD Poster). If I unplug the LSI, the PC boots without any problem.

This issue is with the LSI on my Asus Striker II Formula (where I intend to use it). The issue is still there if I remove all the other devices or if I disable the onboard RAID controller. I did try also to configure the LSI to disable its boot support and played around with all the other settings, without success...

I did next plug the LSI in my brand new Asus P9X79Pro and there, the boot sequence of the PC continue after the LSI initialization, so I could downgrade the Bios from taht PC... Unfortunately, I can find any older Bios on LSI web sites :(
 
vletoye said:
This is a very old post but I am sad to not read any conclusion (after the RMA)

I did upgrade my own LSI from 7.5.0.0 to 7.29.0.0 to solve a "warning" displayed the end of the initialization:(

Bad idea... Now, I don't have the warning anymore and the initialization completes successfully, but my PC doesn't continue to boot anymore. I.e.: it's blocked on the "Load Menu" boot sequence (As I can read on my LCD Poster). If I unplug the LSI, the PC boots without any problem.

This issue is with the LSI on my Asus Striker II Formula (where I intend to use it). The issue is still there if I remove all the other devices or if I disable the onboard RAID controller. I did try also to configure the LSI to disable its boot support and played around with all the other settings, without success...

I did next plug the LSI in my brand new Asus P9X79Pro and there, the boot sequence of the PC continue after the LSI initialization, so I could downgrade the Bios from taht PC... Unfortunately, I can find any older Bios on LSI web sites :(
Click to expand...

What model do you have? LSI has "archived" drivers/firmware/BIOS updates on their website when you following the "search by product" link (http://www.lsi.com/support/Pages/download-search.aspx)

By default, when you select a category (e.g., Firmware) it will display all of the current files available for download. There will be an "Archived" link for older versions. For example, for the 9201-16i HBA, firmwares P8 through P14 are archived, while P15 is the current version.
 
I have a HBA SAS 9201-16i. The very same as silkshadow.

I did visit the download page yet, but when I see the list of bios for my card, I see only one. And if I click on "archive", there is nothing :(

I did sent a email to LSI as well as a request (submitted online) but didn't get any answer yet (about 48hours ago). I need to be more patient I presume...

And; thx a lot for answering ;)

V.
 
LSI did provide me their oldest bios still available: 7.15.0.0

I have been able to flash it using another PC (from within Windows), and now, all my problems are gone :D

Conclusion: SLI firmware 15.0.0.0 and bios 7.15.0.0 for SAS adapter 9201-16i are fully compatible with my motherboard Asus Striker II Formula and my SAS adapter Promise FastTrak TX4660, raid enabled on both.

V.
 
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