LSI 9201-16e on consumer hardware, fault

bsiao

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Hi all, I recently purchased a used LSI 9201-16e from eBay and have had a number of problems. Drives added with a mini-SAS expander do not appear in Windows and every possible way I've attempted to flash p20 firmware (DOS, efi) results in a variety of errors. The most common of which is a fault state error. While sas2flash is able to see the card, it isn't able to flash any firmware and the card does not present any attached drives. In Windows, the MegaRAID GUI doesn't see the card. In FreeDOS megarec doesn't see the card either.

lsi-fault.jpg


The only other factor that I figured could be causing the card to not work is the motherboard so I tried using 3 other consumer motherboards, 2 resulting in the same error, the other refusing to boot but that's probably because it was a cheap motherboard. All of the motherboards were consumer motherboards.

I also tried taping the 5th and 6th pins on the front, still no change.

Should I RMA this card? I'm a complete novice when it comes to HBAs so I wanted to cover my bases before sending it back. I'd appreciate any advise, thanks!
 

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Where did the raid card come from? ive seen some Dell pulls that will only flash from a dell system.
 
While you are at it, I would flash P19. P20 gave me problems, issues with P20 seemed common when I previously got mine. I've been running P19 for quite a while 24/7 with all ports full and it's silky smooth. I also added a 80mm fan to the heatsink to help with heat issues, whenever all drives are being taxed at once.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions! I’ve been fortunate enough to have found a friend with a Dell 2650 they’re willing to let me borrow. I’ll try P19 on that and report back.
 
Turns out they had a Poweredge 2850 that doesn't have PCI-e so I'll probably just RMA the card. In your experience Rifter0876 if the 9201 doesn't come from a dell server is it usually motherboard agnostic?
 
Turns out they had a Poweredge 2850 that doesn't have PCI-e so I'll probably just RMA the card. In your experience Rifter0876 if the 9201 doesn't come from a dell server is it usually motherboard agnostic?

Yes im running 2 SUN pulls in my NAS.
 
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My original card was likely faulty or flashed incorrectly. I received a refund and purchased a new, unopened 9201-16e and everything works properly on the same hardware.

For any future searchers, try an RMA if you can't flash a card pulled from a Dell server especially if you don't have access to Dell hardware. Thanks all for the help!
 
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