Asus P6TWSPRO SAS with Dell 5ir SAS Card = PROBLEMS?!

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DD_nVidia

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 15, 2009
Messages
177
Hey guys, read hard ocp on and off for a good few years now.

I don't usually run into computer trouble, I like to think I have most things worked out and understood, but when it comes to stuff usually found in servers, I'm a little out of my league.

Help from some of you guys would be fantastic!

Basically here's the deal:

A friend of my uncles came across some 74GB SAS 15.5K Seagate Cheetah drives. I had just gotten a P6T Workstation Pro board and it has 2 SAS ports on it. Perfect! I've had them Raid 0 for months now as my OS drive, blisteringly fast. I had recently decided that I maybe didnt need that amount of speed, so seperated them and was using the 2nd as a Scratch Disk, Cache, Pagefile disk.

So far so good.

Yesterday I get a package, 74GB and 146GB 15.5K SAS Drives and a Dell 5/ir PCI-E 8x controller card.

Full Spec of the card is (at startup)

Dell SAS 5 Host Bus Adapter BIOS
MPTBIOS-6.12.02.00 (2006.12.22)

LSO Logic - SAS1068-IR - 0.10.49.00

Thought, fantastic, Dual boot Windows 7 and XP on the onbaord SAS, 7 in the 146, XP on the 74 its on, and use the other 2 74's in Raid 0 as scratchdisk/cache/pagefile/ for both OS's.

This is where the problems started....

Motherboard posts
Dell card starts up, spins up the drives, done
Marvell Chipset starts up, spins up the drives, .... then stops.

Keyboard is frozen, even numlock etc. wont respond.

Unplug the cable from the Dell sas controller and I can boot.

Disable the Marvell SAS controller, dell one spins up finishes and tells me to insert proper boot media.



- I am guessing there is some sort of incompatibility here between the onboard and PCI-E SAS controllers. But, how do I fix it?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you!
 
There is your problem.

78411d1216366968-perc-5-i-raid-card-tips-img_8499.jpg


Tape over those pins.
 
Very much appreciated man! Just a small bit electrical tape do the trick surely?

Can't seem to find any in the house right now, i'll nip out later on and get it.

Super excited haha, thanks again man!
 
...did you just mark over the PCIe pins with a Sharpie? :D

EDIT: comparing the pictures, I think you're one pin too far to the left/one pin away from the right.
 
I just shopped the picture to show where i was putting the tape, and yeah I noticed this and put the tape on the proper pins when i done it.

Still no joy

hangs after booting my marvel controller still
 
bumpy bump

also if i plug the sas drives cable into the card whilst windows 7 is in. It sees both them.

so defo to do with conflict at start up
 
Do you guys really use an itty bitty piece of tape for this?

Wouldn't something like nail polish work better / last longer on multiple inserts?
 
simplesam said:
Do you guys really use an itty bitty piece of tape for this?

Wouldn't something like nail polish work better / last longer on multiple inserts?
Click to expand...

actually, it doesnt work as well. I tried nail polish on mine and it would abrade away with 1 or 2 inserts. I ended up taking a needle and gouging out the copper traces on the pcb just prior to the pcie pins.
 
FYI in your pic you did the wrong ones. You covered 4&5 not 5&6.

Your card is a 5ir mine is a 5i thats why they look different but they operate the same.
 
hmm I covered the 5&6 when I actually done it and it still hung...

I'll give it another try but with nail polish this time. I only plan on inserting once so its not a big deal for me.

Duck tape was a bit to thick, maybe thats why it wasnt working aha. I'll give the electrical tape and nail polish a try tonight.

Just when I thought I was happy with the storage solution on my rig. haha!

I think i'll do some re arranging of the hard drives in my case once i get it setup. I'll probably have some questions about software/hardware raids living with each other. But i'll save that for another thread.
 
In the lab I work in, we use Kapton tape for covering up pins on edge connectors. It works really well and lasts for at least tens of insertions. But I guess it's not likely that you have a roll sitting around your house.
 
Yeah nail polish was an epic fail...and stopped my pc from working, video card wouldnt display a thing. quick clean out of most of the stuff and its back up.

Gonna try tape tomorrow haha
 
Completely ignore me, im a tube!

Set the SAS Card to not boot, duh.

Could have sworn I done that already...

BIOS Posts
Marvel on-board SAS Controller starts, spins up 74GB and 146GB 15.5K Drives.
Windows XP Pro starts to load
Load screen stutters as the 2 x 74GB 15.5K SAS Drives spin up (Raid 0)
XP Loads
Detects 1x69GB(OS), 1x165GB(empty), 1x164GB(empty, Raid 0, DELL Controller)

Ace :D Thanks for your help guys, even though it was my own stupid fault it wasnt working with or without the tape haha.
 
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