LSI-9207-8i and Lenovo Thinkcentre m92p max memory question

[decuser]

I am a TrueNAS newb, but longtime FreeBSD user. I recently purchased a reasonably cheap SAS card to put into my Thinkcentre m92p... the LSI-9207-8i. When I added it to the system, I got 3 long beeps and a short one indicating a memory issue. I've had 32 GB ram in the machine since I put it together without any issues. So, I took 8GB out and tried again. It works, but my system now has 24 GB instead of 32.

I am curious if this is normal - add a SAS card and reduce max memory, or if y'all have heard anything similar.

 

[Ericloewe]

Not normal or expected, but...

Some systems do some funky and dubious sharing of PCIe and DRAM I2C/SMBuses which can cause all sorts of weird and wonderful issues.

Since you don't actually need the SMBus for your SAS controller, see if you can disable it for the PCIe slot in your system firmware setup menu. I suspect that will fix your DRAM issue.
If it doesn't, then it's electrical and all bets are off.

 

[decuser]

@Ericloewe, awesome response. I dug around a bit, found a thread talking about Dell cards in non-dell machines where the fix was to tape the PCIe pins to mask off the SBCLK and SBDAT pins (clock/data for SMBus) and a little bit of electrical tape, exacto knife, and patience later, et voila - SAS is working, mem too!

Brilliant and thanks!

 

[Ericloewe]

I'll be honest, I'm partial to not sticking anything that's not a card-edge connector into my PCIe slots, so I'd investigate if there's a system firmware setting for that.

 

[decuser]

I am definitely with you, but in this case, there's no bios option in either the m92p or the lsi. I'll keep looking though. I suppose, if I was hardcore, I could just remove the traces from the card connector, but I'm not ready to do that just yet.

 

[Ericloewe]

Suddenly tape doesn't sound so bad.