PERC 5/i question

[SgtSpike]

Hi all, new here. OCN can't answer my question, so I thought I'd try a different set of tech gurus...

I have a computer I use as a server. It has 7 HDDs, 4 SSDs, an i7, 24GB of ram, and a GA-X58-USB3 motherboard.

I have two PERC 5/i cards, two batteries, and one stick of memory. I only want to run one of the cards, but have two to test and play around with.

Since the PERC 5/i is an 8x card, and I only have 16x slots available, I have removed the backplate from both cards. It gets in the way of the 16x slot and doesn't allow the card to fully seat.

I would like to use the PERC 5/i with 4 of the HDDs to create a RAID 5 array. So far though, I cannot get the system to boot or show any signs of life besides fans spinning when I install either of the cards.

I have tried nailpolish over pins 5 & 6, as instructed to ensure it works with Intel chipsets, but have had no better results.

Is there a way to tell if the PERC 5/i is just straight-up incompatible with my motherboard? Or incompatible with the chipsets on the motherboard? Or is there something else I am doing wrong here?

 

[AMD_Gamer]

What board do you have?

You may need to do a BIOS flash to get it to work.

If the board does not boot up at all then something else is wrong, possible bad Perc 5 cards? do you know that they work?

Are you sure you have it seated correctly?

 

[CJ145]

I have heard of problems with nail polish scraping off on the pins. Try covering them with electrical tape instead, when properly placed it should not scrape off during insertion.

I have a perc 5i in my GA-EX58-UD5 board and it works fine with the pins covered. If it is not detected at boot, do a bios reset the first time. Some times after that it may not show up, just power off the computer by removing power and then boot it back up.

 

[SgtSpike]

Board is a GA-X58-USB3. I wrote that in the first post too, but it was buried in text.

I don't know that the cards work. They were purchased on eBay. I have yet to try them in another system, but I suppose that should be my next step.

Seated and reseated. I've looked at the pins, they seem to go in far enough. Not sure that there's anything else I can do with regards to seating.

I did look at the card after pulling it out, and it didn't appear as though the nail polish had scraped off. I put three layers on it, with the third being extra thick.

I'll try doing a bios reset when I get a chance. Maybe that'll do the trick. Trying to minimize downtime as much as possible, as I have a few gameservers that run off of it...