Is my integrated LSI-controller dead?

Hi!

I bought an OEM Tyan S2915-E (from an XW9400 workstation) off eBay, accepting the risks as it was sold "as is". The board works perfectly, except I can't get the onboard LSI 1068E adapter to work. I've tried re-flashing it with new firmware/BIOS (sasflash), but all attempts fail with the error message "controller not operational" or something. During the flash attempt I also noticed some error messages that the process fails to reset the card. The card is enabled in the BIOS. I assume this means that the controller is dead, but thought I should check with you experts to see if you have any opinions? Anything I could try to get this thing going?

Thanks!

Does the controller itself get detected when booting into Linux/BSD environment? What if you connect one or more disks to it?

Yes, the controller is detected, but it cannot be started. It fails with a warning that the card cannot be reset. Disks attached to the controller is not detected, and is also not listed at startup (BIOS/POST screen).

Wow that's a bummer. It has been awhile since I looked at a server BIOS with on-board scsi controllers but I would suggest just going through all the screens one last time to ensure there is not some rogue setting that was missed. Or at the very least reset the BIOS, other than that Tyan might repair this for you on the cheap.

Nah...not that big a bummer really. Got it very cheap, so it was a calculated risk Nevertheless, it would be fun if I got it to work!

I've been through the BIOS many many times, so I'm pretty sure that everything is ok there. I've also tried to reset and re-flash the BIOS multiple times. I don't think Tyan can do anything with it, since it's an OEM HP branded card (taken from an HP XW9400 workstation). The motherboard manual says something about getting into "option rom prompt" by pressing a key during POST to access the LSI bios, but I can't seem to get into any "option rom prompt"...