Have I bricked my Areca 1680ix-24 expander?

N

nry

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
409
I recently tried to update my firmware on the sas expander on my Areca 1680ix-24 controller.

Currently this is what it shows on my 'SY' command via the serial connection. There seems to be an issue with the CFG Data (this is after trying to update the data)

Code: 
CLI>sy
 Vender     : Areca Technology Co Ltd. Taiwan, R.O.C 
 Model      : ARC-8011
 Serial No. : Y943CABWAR800720
 Unit Serial:                 
 SAS address: 0x5001B4D7035FB03F
 Customer   : 0x95
 Port Num.  : 36
 Chip Rev.  : A01
 BOOT Rev.  : 05.3A.1.22 07/23/08
 Firmware   : 05.63.1.32 05/26/09
 CFG Data   : Mismatch-0x00
 GAL ID     : 0095
 Work Time  : 0: 1:50

After attempting to update the firmware this shows in the log too
Code: 
     0: 3:30>OK  : Save Config !
     0: 0: 0>POST: System Boot Up!
     0: 0: 0>FAIL: The Manufacturing Data appears to be corrupt!
     0: 0: 0>POST: Enter the Main Loop ..

In the Areca web GUI no expander shows up.

When updating the firmware, I followed the PDF guide, but when trying to update the data file, DAT2 would fail on 16k. Following another guide said to use DAT1 which successfully uploads. But obviously the firmware isnt updating...

Code: 
Sending mfgdat1101223.rom, 1088 blocks: Give your local XMODE|             
|M receive command now.                                       |             
|Xmodem sectors/kbytes sent: 128/16k                          |             
| Retry 0: Timeout on sector ACK

I am getting my firmware from here
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/BIOS_Firmware/ARC1680/Expander/

Any help would be appreciated here, slightly concerned I have fooked this card :(
 
The card should still be salvageable, interestingly enough just last night i managed to resurrect an LSI HBA that i had sort of bricked with a bad firmware update previously (i got the FW updated but had nuked the bios accidentally). Kind of a long shot but did you manage to dump a backup image before starting the update?

Edit: i should say, did you have the option of dumping a backup of what was already on the flash?
 
Last edited:
Couldn't find an option to dump it
As I usually would do
 
That link is for the actual areca controller, not the sas expander chip.

Far as I can tell the only place to get the SAS firmware is off their FTP site.
 
Dump. Getting slightly desperate on this one!

Areca support have stopped responding too
 
Sorry man, you've got me on that one, i don't have anything with the same expander installed or i would try and find a way to dump the flash image for you. Maybe some kind soul here would be kind enough to do that and provide you with the image, or would have some info on what expander chip is supplied with the controller so we can look elsewhere for the FW image?
 
I remember reading that they use the LSI chips

Can find info about the 1880 model ...


The Areca SAS Expander module ARC-8026 is based on the LSI LSISAS2x36/28 expander IC

Will see if I can take the heat sink off easily or find some info online

As according to areca support my expander lives in the 8020 family
 
I have read something which says it's based on the LSI SASx28 chip. But can't find any solid confirmation of this.

Tried to remove the heat sink, but that's not happening!! ha

Actually ready to cry the fact this has happened!!
 
Keeping in mind that i do not have an areca controller available (i am not familiar with their update tools), have you tried re-flashing with the firmware intended for the card itself from:
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/BIOS_Firmware/ARC1680/150-20120120/

It is possible that the entire card (including the expander chipset) is bootstrapped using the same firmware image. Again, my HBA and expander are discrete devices so i do not have experience with the combined units, just taking a shot in the dark.
 
Tried updating the controller firmware, still same issue with the SAS expander.

Areca support does not reply to the issue.
Looking back through my emails I may have uncovered the issue. Areca provided me the following link to download the firmware from
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/ExpanderBox/ARC8020/

I asked for confirmation that this is the correct firmware from them, in which I got a reply

yes, the firmware is correct, 8020 and 8011 are same family use same firmware code.[/quote

So I probably installed the wrong firmware in the first place bricking the card! Due to the link they provided me ffs
Click to expand...
 
It is probably too late for you, but others might run into the same problems. We had exactly the same issue while updating expander on 1680 (freezing after 16k while dat1 flashing). Adapter was bricked then with "The Manufacturing Data appears to be corrupt!" message. But it was not arecas fault but ours. It is stated clearly in documentation that "xmodem/1k" should be used while transferring image files. And "1k" is the key. When i changed "xmodem" settings in minicom to "/usr/bin/sx -vv -k", update ran smoothly and images were transferred without any problems. It seems that one can use 8020 images or images from BIOS_Firmware/ARC1680/Expander/ from areca ftp, both work fine.
 
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