Re: LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-4i hangs system at boot

[Ramon Hofer <ramonhofer@bluewin.ch>]

It's me again.

After several unsuccessful tries to update the BIOS I brought it back to
my dealer to let him do it.
He now says that the mainboard is broken and I get my money back.

Now my question is should I go for the same mainboard again or what do
you recommend?
I suppose the LSI problem was due to the broken mainboard but the
dealer also said that the LSI has the C7P67 not listed as a compatible
board.

What I want to connect to the mainboard is:

2x PCIe x8 for the LSI and the expander
1x PCIe x1 for the graphics card
1-2x PCIe x1 for TeVii sat card(s)
1-2x PCI for PVR-500 analogue TV card(s)

It would be nice if it had a connector for the lan chassis LEDs :-)


Best regards
Ramon


On Wed, 30 May 2012 17:38:01 -0500
Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:

> On 5/30/2012 4:52 PM, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> > On Tue, 29 May 2012 20:49:32 -0500
> > Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> On 5/29/2012 7:09 AM, Ramon Hofer wrote:
> >>> On Sun, 20 May 2012 21:37:19 -0500
> >>> Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> (...)
> >>>
> >>>> Does the mobo BIOS show the disk device?  If not, does the 9240
> >>>> BIOS show the disk device, RAID level, and its size?
> >>>>
> >>>> What we need to figure out is whether this is a BIOS problem at
> >>>> this point or a Debian installer kernel driver problem.
> >>>
> >>> I have finally found some time to work on the problem:
> >>>
> >>> I set up a raid1 in the hba bios. I couldn't install onto it with
> >>> the supermicro mb.
> >>>
> >>> Then I mounted the lsi hba into my old server with an Asus mb
> >>> (can't remember which one it is, must have to check it at
> >>> home...). It (almost) works like a charm.
> >>> The only issue is that I can't enter the hba BIOS when it's
> >>> mounted in the Asus mb. But when I put it back into the
> >>> Supermicro mb I can access it again. Very strange!
> >>
> >> This behavior isn't strange.  Just about every mobo BIOS has an
> >> option to ignore or load option ROMs.  On your SuperMicro board
> >> this is controlled by the setting "AddOn ROM Display Mode" under
> >> the "Boot Feature" menu.  Your ASUS board likely has a similar
> >> feature that is currently disabled, preventing the LSI option ROM
> >> from being loaded.
> > 
> > Very interesting! I didn't know that.
> > The values I can choose for the "AddOn ROM Display Mode" are
> > "Keep current" and "Force Bios". I have chosen the Force Bios
> > option. And I have disable the two options you describe below.
> > In the supermicro the hba's init screen isn't displayed at all now.
> > On the other hand in the asus I saw the init screen when the
> > attached discs are listed I just can't enter the configuration
> > program with ctrl+h although the message to press these keys is
> > shown.
> > 
> > I'm now able to boot into the 2.6.32-5 kernel.
> > It takes quite a while until the megasas module was loaded (I
> > suppose: the over-current messages are shown for a while ~2 mins
> > and then it's boot normally until the login prompt.
> > When I leave it alone I get the message:
> > 
> > INFO: task scsi_scan_0:341 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
> > "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this
> > message.
> > 
> > After booting the first time this evening I installed the bpo 3.2
> > kernel.
> > When I try to reboot the stable kernel the system hangs after the
> > message "Will now restart."
> > 
> > After a while the above message about the blocked task appears
> > again.
> > 
> > The bpo kernel 3.2 seems to fail. The two over current-messages are
> > shown and then this message:
> > http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=XqVunR9e
> > 
> > 
> > When I load the stable kernel it stop for a while again after the
> > over-current message then finally gets to the login prompt. After a
> > while I got this message:
> > http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=w409KaFN
> > 
> > 
> >>> But apart from that I could install Debian onto the raid1. Then I
> >>> set
> >>
> >> This was on the ASUS board correct?  Were you able to boot the
> >> RAID1 device after install?  If so this indeed would be strange as
> >> you should not be able to boot from the HBA if its ROM isn't
> >> loaded.
> > 
> > No I wasn't able to boot the kernel installed to the RAID1. Grub was
> > loaded but only because I've installed it to the disk directly
> > attached to the MB's SATA controller.
> > But when choosing the RAID1 kernel it stopped (can't remember the
> > message anymore). I thought I haven't set the boot option for the
> > raid1 in the hba bios properly.
> > 
> > 
> >>> the bios to use the disks as jbods and installed Debian gain to a
> >>> drive directly attached to the mb sata controller.
> >>> With the original squeeze kernel the disks attached to the hba
> >>> weren't visible. But after updating to the bpo kernel I can fdisk
> >>> them separately and put it into a raid5 (in the end I want to
> >>> apply the 500G partition method Cameleon suggested).
> >>
> >> This experience with the ASUS board leads me to wonder if disabling
> >> the option ROM and INT19 on the SM board would allow everything to
> >> function properly.  Try that before you take the board to the
> >> dealer for flashing.  Assuming you've deleted any BIOS configured
> >> RAID devices in the HBA BIOS already and all drives are configured
> >> for JBOD mode, drop the HBA back into the SM board, go into the SM
> >> BIOS, set "PCI Slot X Option ROM" to "DISABLED" where X is the
> >> number of the PCIe slot in which the LSI HBA is inserted.  Set
> >> "Interrupt 19 Capture" to "DISABLED".  Save settings and reboot.
> >>
> >> You should now see the same behavior as on the ASUS, including the
> >> HBA BIOS not showing up during the boot process.  Which I'm
> >> thinking is the key to it working on the ASUS as the ROM code is
> >> never resident. Thus it is not causing problems with kernel
> >> driver, which is apparently assuming the 9240 series ROM will not
> >> be resident.
> > 
> > Maybe I wasn't clear about that. The hba BIOS seems to be loaded in
> > the asus as well but I just can't enter its setting with ctrl+h.
> > 
> > Does all of this tell us anything :-?
> > 
> > 
> >> This loading of the option ROM code is what some would consider the
> >> difference between "HBA RAID mode" and "HBA JBOD mode".
> > 
> > Well then it seems as if I want to use Linux software raid I would
> > better keep the setting to disable the loading of the option ROM :-/
> > 
> > 
> >>>> Did you already flash the C7P67 BIOS to the latest version?  I
> >>>> can't recall.
> >>>
> >>> I have tried to do that but it was quite strange.
> >>> I created a freedos usb stick with unetbootin and copied the files
> >>> for the update from supermicro into the stick. I did exactly what
> >>> the readmes told me. But when I did it the first time there was no
> >>> output of the flash process and the directory where the supermicro
> >>> files were located on the stick was empty.
> >>> When I tried to do the procedure again it complains that I have to
> >>> first install version 1.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately flashing mobo BIOS is still not always an uneventful
> >> nor routine process, even in 2012.
> > 
> > Yes, I've had issues with both times I tried to do that (now and
> > about a year ago with an Intel mainboard) :-(
> > Maybe this should tell me something ;-)
> > 
> > 
> >>> I will now bring it to my dealer who can do the BIOS update for
> >>> me.
> >>>
> >>> And I will write to Supermicro if they are aware of the issue.
> >>
> >> Try what I mention above before doing either of these things.
> > 
> > I've already mailed both of them on Monday.
> > 
> > The dealer tells me to do anything on my own.
> > 
> > But Supermicro is very helpful. They described how to flash the bios
> > before they knew about the problem I have with the v1.10 that the
> > BIOS updater wants me to install first.
> > They even attached the zip. Unfortunately it wasn't complete (the
> > installer complained about a missing file).
> > 
> > They're also helping me to install v1.10 but again I can't find
> > a .ROM file which I should rename according to their instruction in
> > the mail. So I asked again this evening...
> > 
> > Hopefully I can flash v1.10 to the Supermicro tomorrow and then
> > update to the newest version.
> > Maybe I then am already able to boot :-)
> > Or I try the steps you described about a week ago again and keep the
> > load option ROM setting off.
> > If this doesn't help neither I will try the newest firmware from lsi
> > which has just been released on May 21, 2012.
> > 
> > Is this a good idea or do you have a better advice?
> 
> I'd get the mobo and HBA BIOS to the latest revs.  Then if it still
> doesn't work, as I recommended earlier, you need to try another
> non-Debian based distro to eliminate the possibility that Debian is
> doing something goofy in their kernels.  If neither the latest
> versions of SuSE nor Fedora work, then it's clear you have an
> upstream kernel issue, or a hardware issue.  Either way, that gives
> you good information to present to LSI Support when you contact them.
> 
> Ultimately, if anyone is to have the answer to this mystery, it will
> be LSI, or upstream kernel devs, as you've performed pretty much all
> possible troubleshooting steps of an end user.  You may want to post a
> brief description of the problem to the linux-scsi list.  The guys who
> wrote and maintain the upstream LSI Linux drivers are on that mailing
> list.
> 
> FWIW, LSI certifies the 9240-4i (all their boards actually) as
> compatible with all point releases of Debian 5.x.  They don't have a
> compat doc later than Dec 2010 for this board series, so I'm not sure
> what their support policy is for Debian 6.
>