x9srh-7f will not boot from onboard lsi/broadcom 2308

[artlessknave]

has anyone tried to boot from the onboard SAS on a x9srh-7f?

I got it to go in a proprietary, old isilon chassis, thinking i could just put some reverse break-outs on it, but it will not boot from the sas at all, there is no sign of it in the BIOS, and it does not give the "press ctrl-C to configure" prompt or anything. the expander *can* boot, I had an x9spu in it (cobbled together cuz UIO) and it booted from an LSI card.
it clearly works, as the drives are all available on a USB booted freenas.
I have updated everything, and the 2308 reports having the bios on it.
is there a setting or jumper somewhere I am missing? I have some x8dte's (they are what was in the s200, but they are so old the java barely works at all)
what I really need to know is, is this normal/possible to enable, or is the board faulty? its from ebay so if it's faulty i need to know.
it has a miniSATA carrier thing, but the damn thing doesn't fit with the breakout cables connected, miniSATA drives are a PITA to find, and I dont WANT the boot drive inside it.

isilon s200 (2u 24 bay, 2.5", with SAS expander 2x sff-8087
x9srh-7f
random 2.5"s
2x chelsio t320E
2x reverse break out cables (cables-to-go i think?)
truenas 12u8 (on a USB, but booting from USB makes ikvm input not work, also super annoying)

any ideas?

 

[jgreco]

reverse break-outs on it,

Make sure you've obsessed over the port numbering. It looks like the ports may be numbered seven to zero from left to right. Though if it is working, that's probably good enough.

So just to be clear, you've looked through the BIOS bits to enable/disable option ROM's? Because there are basically two bits here:

1) The PC BIOS can be told to disregard option ROM's of devices.

2) A previous owner may not have flashed the option ROM onto the unit.

I think "mprutil show adapter" will show you the option ROM version.

 

[artlessknave]

I made sure to flash both firmware and bios to it, since I figured, at first, that it just didn't have the bios on it, since obviously that would make it have nothing to boot.
I also mucked about trying to find an applicable "boot from my card, dummy" option in the BIOS, and the only thing related I could find was disabling quick boot, and changing the "force bios" option, none of which helps.
the manual has a jumper to disable SAS, but since I can see the drives in truenas, that seems like it's not disabled?
the manual also has a "RAID key", but I dont think that would many any difference, since it has the IT firmware anyway.
putting the ports "in order" doesnt seem like it would really help much, since the backplane has 2 sff-8087, but it doesnt say if either is "port 1". proprietary :|
I wasnt able to find a port numbering when I was plugging it all in, but I am fairly sure I guessed the board in the correct order anyway.
I can use a pcie card, but the idea was to use the onboard and not lose 1 of the only 3 pcie slots. sigh.

Show : mpsutil show adapter

Code:

root@nas[/]# mpsutil show adapter
mps0 Adapter:
       Board Name: SAS9207-8i
   Board Assembly:
        Chip Name: LSISAS2308
    Chip Revision: ALL
    BIOS Revision: 7.39.02.00
Firmware Revision: 20.00.07.00
  Integrated RAID: no
         SATA NCQ: ENABLED
 PCIe Width/Speed: x8 (8.0 GB/sec)
        IOC Speed: Full
      Temperature: 56 C

PhyNum  CtlrHandle  DevHandle  Disabled  Speed   Min    Max    Device
0       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
1       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
2       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
3       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
4       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
5       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
6       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator
7       0001        0009       N         6.0     1.5    6.0    SAS Initiator

Show : sas2flash -list

Code:

root@nas[/]# sas2flash -list
LSI Corporation SAS2 Flash Utility
Version 16.00.00.00 (2013.03.01)
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 LSI Corporation. All rights reserved

        Adapter Selected is a LSI SAS: SAS2308_1(D1)

        Controller Number              : 0
        Controller                     : SAS2308_1(D1)
        PCI Address                    : 00:04:00:00
        SAS Address                    : 5003048-0-18ee-5b00
        NVDATA Version (Default)       : 14.01.00.06
        NVDATA Version (Persistent)    : 14.01.00.06
        Firmware Product ID            : 0x2214 (IT)
        Firmware Version               : 20.00.07.00
        NVDATA Vendor                  : LSI
        NVDATA Product ID              : SAS9207-8i
        BIOS Version                   : 07.39.02.00
        UEFI BSD Version               : N/A
        FCODE Version                  : N/A
        Board Name                     : SAS9207-8i
        Board Assembly                 : N/A
        Board Tracer Number            : N/A

        Finished Processing Commands Successfully.
        Exiting SAS2Flash.

 

[sybreeder]

Hm
i've installed bios in mine 2308-IT but in virtualized environment it doesn't show BIOS info

I'd probably need to reboot whole ESXi host.
Some settings can be set from MSM from windows for example.

Ok I'm in bios

I was hitting Ctrl+C like a maniac

I've attached bios file that i've used
sas2flash -b mptsas2.rom

 

[artlessknave]

so it problaby should work, and I need to figure out why it doesnt. hrm.
made a video. for fun.
I guess next ill try opening it up and see if the SAS jumper is on disable. I would have expected that to completely disable it, but maybe that just disables boot?

according to your screenies, we are are using the exact same firmware and bios, so it must be something with this board, thought I think our boards are slightly different.

 

[sybreeder]

so it problaby should work, and I need to figure out why it doesnt. hrm.
made a video. for fun.
I guess next ill try opening it up and see if the SAS jumper is on disable. I would have expected that to completely disable it, but maybe that just disables boot?

according to your screenies, we are are using the exact same firmware and bios, so it must be something with this board, thought I think our boards are slightly different.

From that video a don't see LSI/Avago bios at all. It's like it's not installed. I'd try flash just the bios.
There was only Intel NIC firmware
Oh make sure that opROM is enabled in supermicro motherboard bios! for SAS2308

Something like is in mine X9DRH-7TF

this is in X9SRH-7F
If enabling those oprom won't show LSI ROM seems like booting from 2308 is not supported. And even though you've installed bios it will not be enabled by motherboard

 

[artlessknave]

From that video a don't see LSI/Avago bios at all. It's like it's not installed.

I know, that's the part that has me stumped. I set the SAS jumper to disabled, and it does, in fact, completely disable it, there are no drives at all. so it's not that.
it HAS the bios, but never even attempts to run it.

 

[Ericloewe]

Do you have both the BIOS and UEFI ROMs flashed? The BIOS extension ROM gives you the prompt at boot, whereas the UEFI extension ROM adds menus to the setup application (look inside the PCI configuration options, etc.).

If you're booting from UEFI, disable all CSM stuff and set the option ROM to UEFI only or UEFI+BIOS. If you're booting in legacy BIOS mode, you'll obviously need to keep CSM enabled and set the option ROM to BIOS or UEFI+BIOS.

 

[sybreeder]

I know, that's the part that has me stumped. I set the SAS jumper to disabled, and it does, in fact, completely disable it, there are no drives at all. so it's not that.
it HAS the bios, but never even attempts to run it.

jumper will do nothing other than disable controller completely.
If opROM is not active in BIOS it will not start it. And if there is no option to enable opROM for LSI 2308 booting is not possible.

 

[artlessknave]

I pretty much always use legacy/BIOS, because UEFI makes absolutely zero sense to me, but ultimately I don't care which one, as long as I can get it work.
it HAS the bios. it does NOT prompt for it. ever. the video shows exactly what it does.
i took some screneshorts, all the OPROM options available are enabled. Im trying Launch storage as UEFI just to see, but I dont have high hopes...
everything was reset to defaults when I updated the bios and cleared the cmos.

 

[artlessknave]

UEFI ROMs flashed

I dont have a UEFI ROM for it. there isnt one in the firmware package, just the BIOS one. and trying to find any of the firmware packages on the broadcom/LSI/AVAGE/whoever-the-hell-is-the-newest website is a lesson in frustration. i can only ever find the absolute newest (like 9400), anything else is either nonexistant or somewhere I just cant figure out.

 

[sybreeder]

I pretty much always use legacy/BIOS, because UEFI makes absolutely zero sense to me, but ultimately I don't care which one, as long as I can get it work.
it HAS the bios. it does NOT prompt for it. ever. the video shows exactly what it does.
i took some screneshorts, all the OPROM options available are enabled. Im trying Launch storage as UEFI just to see, but I dont have high hopes...
everything was reset to defaults when I updated the bios and cleared the cmos.

As i shown you in my motherboard i have dedicated LSI oprom in BIOS. You don't . Mine enabled and it works.
In Manual there is nothing more related to 2308 unfortunately...
You can test with HBA as pcie card. PCIe ports has enabled oprom so it should work.

 

[artlessknave]

dedicated LSI oprom in BIOS

ah, I didnt catch that. that's probably a sign of what is going on.
do you know which BIOs version you have? it should be the same base bios. (not urgent, if you happen to find it or are rebooting anyway)
with that info, I am trying re-upgrading the bios. maybe upgrading it before the LSI bios caused a disconnect....somewhere. or. something. it's the official damn board BIOS, from the supermicro site, so why it wouldn't have the oprom, I have no idea.
unless this is a fake board or something, but I find that unlikely, very complex, and so far everything works as expected, just the oprom problems.
(I didn't expect the jumper to be it, i was just trying to find things I could eliminate, since I had no idea what was missing.)

 

[sybreeder]

IPMI:

BIOS:

My best guess is that they never plann for booting from that LSI2308. Even if you install IR mode bios.
If it's not in manual it's very rare that they implement it.

 

[artlessknave]

except its the same bios, and you have an option to enable it, while I do not. it's functionally the same as a card in a PCIe slot, afaik, it should work the same :'(
I am curious how you can have 3.62 IPMI when the newest on the website is 3.61....
re-upgrading didnt help, but I did do it through IPMI, so...I might try doing a freedos bios upgrade and see if that makes a difference...im not really hopeful though.
I might also try asking supermicro.

 

[sybreeder]

It's not ssupported motherboard. With old Bios that still uses java. I doubt that they implement it now.
On manual there was no 2308 oprom.

do you have something like this ? Maybe there is something there.

 

[artlessknave]

do you have something like this ? Maybe there is something there.

something like what? I do not know what this is referring to.
trying to get anything that works with this chassis peeves me off.

 

[sybreeder]

something like what? I do not know what this is referring to.
trying to get anything that works with this chassis peeves me off.

i mean entry that specifucally says LSI2308
i have one for LSI
i have another entries for X540 nics
and in boot menu i had option to boot from raid card.

 

[artlessknave]

an entry where? that's what I'm not understadning, your screenshot lacks any context for what its a screenshot of.
it's like this to me:

which tells me nothing without knowing WHAT file, and why its being saved.

 

[sybreeder]

an entry where? that's what I'm not understadning, your screenshot lacks any context for what its a screenshot of.
it's like this to me:
View attachment 54017
which tells me nothing without knowing WHAT file, and why its being saved.

In BIos. Maybe advanced tab.
you can also install uefi bios rom
and try to switchto uefi storage.