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FreeNAS Build (Problem with SAS Controller)

O

oxseyn

n00b
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Messages
2
Hello All,

I’m working on a pretty awesome NAS and am running into some problems with the SAS controller. Looking for some advice. I can pay with boobies and kittens, shipped to planet of your choice.

HARDWARE

Recycled Components
EVGA 590 SLI Motherboard
AMD Athlon 4600+ Windsor Processor
8GB DDR2 G.Skill RAM
Generic 500W PSU


New Components
NORCO RPC-4224 w/ 8087 SAS backplanes
Intel SASUC8I PCI-Expressx8 SAS Controller
Syba CF/IDE Adapter and Transcend High Speed CF Card
Samsung EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB Drives (x8)


OPERATING SYSTEM & CONSTRAINTS

I’m going to be running the most current version of FreeNAS. This requires that the hard drives are presented directly to the OS for direct control, rather than as a raid array. This limits me to JBOD type setups to utilize ZFS. Additionally, the case has 5 SAS backplanes with 8087 mini-sas connections.

THE PROBLEM

So, here’s the problem - without the SAS controller installed, the computer boots fine. FreeNAS on CF card working beautifully. However, as soon as I install the SAS controller, it won’t post. There is no post error - it simply reports “memory good” then starts over in an endless loop. The card is green lit LEDs and looks to be powering just fine.

Initially, I thought it might be a bad SAS card, so I RMA’d it and got a replacement. Just tested it this AM, same _exact_ problem. Computer will not post, same exact behavior. Since I’ve now tested with two separate cards, it seems it’s most likely a compatibility problem.

I can’t seem to find any reports of other people having these issues, and I’ve never had a problem with this motherboard, so I’m not sure exactly what’s going on.

I can think of a few possible causes.

The first is that even though the PCI-e standard specifies that the ports are backwards compatible, the PCI-e ports on my MB are not (my board has PCIe 1.0 x16 and x4, but no x8, so the x8 card is in a x16 slot). Not sure how likely this is, or how to test this, without throwing away money.

Second possibility - there is some kind of setting in my BIOS that enables this type of backwards compatibility and I missing it (I’ve looked through about a zillion times not seeing anything that would indicate this is the cause, either I’m blind/dense or this isn’t the problem).

Third - two bad cards in a row. So unlikely.

Fourth - some other kind of bios incompatibility no one else has reported.

So - any ideas? Suggestions? I’m not sure how to proceed at this point. I may possibly return this card and try another?
 
I'm probably not much help but I can offer some food for thought. I use my LSI 9201-16i card in a 16x slot and it works just fine. Don't have any facts but I thought I read somewhere that some Nvidia chipset's do funny things with some LSI HBA's.

EDIT: Here is the article I found on the issue http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1497746
 
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