New LSI 9200 series controllers: 6Gb/s, 2.88 GB/s seq. reads, 1.87 GB/s seq. writes

[Computurd]

thats cool ill be here all night

[trans am]

paul holy crap man. Its the install. something got screwed up somewhere down the line. i'm ripping again. hang on a sec. im wainting for the hdd suite to finish.

[trans am]

thats a relief. time to overclock. wish me luck

[Computurd]

hey thats looking really good bro, tear it up
you should do some good stuff there, post some screenies

Off topic-hey i remember your homemade LN2 GPU pot from the ghetto mods thread, you've got some LN2 i take it, so you given that pot a go yet?

[mer.at]

hey
i've got an used intel RS2BL080 controller for sale (including the fastpath upgrade for SSDs )
if someone is interested PM me.

edit: here some benchmarks from my older setup (RS2BL080 and 8 30GB Vertex)
iometer workstation pattern
http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community...00-post28.html

[eagle101]

Sorry mistake here

[eagle101]

heres my set up guys:help me where you can
asus crosshair 4 extreme
sas seagate savvio 15k rpm 2.5" 6gb/s drive (no raid in system at all)
92114i LSI host controller 6gb/s pcie2.0 or if i went with LSI 92504i pcie 2.0 6gb/s sas controller,
this has 512 cache in controller would i do better with 512 cache or is that just for raid.
i will be loading wxp 32 with the LSI driver at F6 i will have 1 sas drive on the system...
im just playing around with sas....if you guys know please help
if i have to spend 150 bucks more for a better card let me know.
i want snap fast sas speeds im using 1 port 1 sas drive.
i hear about the controllers work only with server boards thats hard to believe

my other system has c300 crucial w764 u320 adaptec scsi
__________________

[tiro_uspsss]

is a LSI 9240-8i for ~USD$70 a good deal?

[mattkosem]

is a LSI 9240-8i for ~USD$70 a good deal?

Seems like it. They go for like $260 new.

--Matt

[tiro_uspsss]

ok so I logged into OCAU forum this morning & there's a fellow selling an IBM M1015, which he claims is a LSI 9240-8i.. he wants $70.
google seems to confirm the claim
either way.. I've bought it.. newegg has the card for 270
I'm not sure how much they sell for here in australia, but for vague comparisons sake, a LSI 9260-8i on newegg is ~500, here in oz $700
so its seems i got myself a bargain
I dont know too much about these cards.. they dont appear to have any onboard cache, correct?
what XOR do they have? how many mhz?
is this.. 'fastpath key' a recommended addition?
cables are cheap enough on ebay..
any help, me would like, TIA!

[eagle101]

i want my LSI SAS 92114i controller to work on a desktop motherboard, so i can use my sas hard drive and lsi 9211 sas controller....asus is out i called them......what motherboard has option rom?
in the pcie 2.0`
comeback

[Mastakilla]

Hi all,

I just discovered that I can't start WebBIOS anymore.

I do not know since when / what this is, since I have only used WebBIOS during the initial setup of the RAID5

A few weeks ago I have updated my LSI's firmware, driver and all LSI software to the latest version (still the latest now). MSM and the RAID5 kept on working great...

What happens is:
* I boot my PC
* I press CTRL-H when it sais I should press CTRL-H for WebBIOS
* It quickly shows the message "WebBIOS will be executed after the POST is over"
* It proceeds to boot but never enters WebBIOS

First it just proceeded by booting Windows, then I tried changing my Gigabyte onboard controllers from AHCI to IDE (the AHCI screen of these controllers came AFTER my LSI boot screen), then I disconnected my SSD (OS drive), then I disabled all onboard controllers except ICH (which had nothing attached) and finally I tried all possible combinations of this... Nothing helps...
If the OS drive is attached, it simply boots the OS... If the OS drive isn't attached, it simply stops booting after the POST (blinking cursor, no error at all)
I tried starting the pre-boot CLI, which works (but it also doesn't start post-POST, like the WebBIOS)

Does anyone have an idea how I can "fix" WebBIOS?

edit1:
Only found this similar issue:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t175482...web_bios_start
Their solution is to remove HDs from the onboard controller, but I already tried that and it didn't help for me...

I just also tried the following:
* Removed DVDROM and SSD (so that there are no devices attached to the onboard controller)
* Removed the 2 new HDs from my LSI RAID controller (so that only the 4 HDs are attached that I initially setup using WebBIOS)
* Loaded fail save settings in the BIOS (although I didn't overclock yet, this should reset all my "optimizations" to the most default BIOS settings)

The above also did NOT help

Anyone still has ideas?

edit2:
I just had a very long call with LSI support (friendly helpful people btw)

He thought it had to do with insufficient memory to load WebBIOS (a server mobo has more memory or something?) and suggested to disable as much as possible in the MOBO BIOS.
So I loaded fail safe settings and then disabled anything I could (including disconnecting as much hardware as possible), but it didn't help either...

Then he suggested to re-install the old firmware of my RAID Controller, since the new firmware has a lot of new advanced features that I'm not using (related to SSD), it might help free up some memory...
I told him I'll get back to him once I tried that.

So I just tried it, again including disabling / detaching as much as possible and this time I also tried loading "optimized default" first...
Again this didn't help...

So I'm stuck once more...

actually the only thing that is different now compared to when I used WebBIOS to initially setup the RAID5 is the BIOS of the MOBO I Think (F7 vs F6)

I'm not sure if that is so easy to roll back, since I do would like to keep my current F7 settings and I'm afraid rolling back will erase those...

So does anyone have an idea what is going on here?
Does anyone understand which memory the LSI support guy suggests is insufficient? Which memory is being used to load such post-POST BIOS applications? How do there post-POST (but pre-WhatEverIsSelectedInTheBIOSAsBootDevice) BIOS applications actually work? Is there a name for such applications (so I can google for it to find out more about it)?

Thanks!

[Computurd]

try changing your memory low gap settings to as high as possible. other than that...seems you are being screwed by the well documented problem with the newest firmware from LSI. there are tons of probs with it and enthusiast motherboards. right now there is no fix. sold my 9260 btw due to these issues.

[Mastakilla]

Thanks for the tip Computurd!!

I'm afraid I do need a bit more details:
* How / Where can I change this memory low gap?
* Why does re-installing the old firmware not help?

Also, I guess I havent been reading this topic enough... cause this is the first thing I hear of issues with the new Firmware :s
Actually my controller is working great (if I don't need to touch it :p)

Do you perhaps have some links to must read topics about issues similar to mine? (cause I could only find the above posted link on fixya.com)

Thanks!

[trans am]

only way is disconnect everything meaning any drives attached to sata board headers. you can leave your raid set in tact that you made on the lsi card. it shouldnt matter that they are on. set your cmos jumper and clear it. get into mobo bios and go to boot priority menu. if you dont see the raid as the 1st hit escape and go below to the hdd priority. make sure the lsi raid is set to the 1st one and disable anything beneath since you have no drives connected except the card you should see only the raid card. hit f10 and save and restart if you see the lsi bullcrap going then you are good. just tap the ctrl and H together and tap them together like you are hitting the snare and the floor tom together. see if it goes.

what board are you on mk? is it the ud7? I see that board has 3 x x16 slots and one at the bottom that is prob x16 at 4x. which slots are u using exactly? what slot is your vga and lsi using? from the top 1 being the top x16 lets say 1 2 3 4

screw the links on google. if paul and I are available you cant get better tech support than this. and dont waste your time with lsi tech support. who do you think they get their support from?

[Computurd]

^^^good info there mr trans am!

EDIT: as far as i know, the issue with the firmware only applies to the EVGA boards.

[trans am]

paul my guess is he has the card in one of the slots meant for vga in the top 1-3 x16 slots. The mobo bios is reading the lsi as a vga card and not taking it. I think he needs to hunt for a setting under the chipset menu in the bios that lets him address the slot. You know that setting you can do that asks vga priority. onboard, pci, pcx, pcx2 etc. i think he needs to set that one. I think its picking the slot he has the lsi and the bios is reading the priority wrong or he needs to get that card in the bottom x16 slot. set his raid up on x4 slot and then he can move it around wherever he wants so he can get the full x8 bandwidth.
you agree?

mk get your ass in here while we are on. let us know what is going on.

[Mastakilla]

lol nice post trans am

just did some googling on the memory low gap thingie... it seems specific to evga and dfi boards (cant find the equivalent for gigabyte)

I indeed have the gigabyte ud7

The ud7 has following pci-e slots:
x1 --> blocked by mobo heatpipe
x1 --> more or less blocked by mobo heatpipe
x16 --> contains gpu
x8 --> blocked by gpu
x16 --> not blocked by gpu, but installing anything in this slot would block airflow to the gpu
pci --> useless
x8 --> LSI RAID

Just read the manual and by installing the LSI RAID in the particular slot, the 2nd x16 slot is reduced to x8 (doesn't matter cause nothing is installed in that slot)
So my LSI RAID should have full x8 speed...

I tried most of what you suggest already, except for the clearing of CMOS (till now I just loaded optimized default and fail safe)
Anyone, I'll now try exactly what you said...

Thanks again!

[Mastakilla]

paul my guess is he has the card in one of the slots meant for vga in the top 1-3 x16 slots. The mobo bios is reading the lsi as a vga card and not taking it. I think he needs to hunt for a setting under the chipset menu in the bios that lets him address the slot. You know that setting you can do that asks vga priority. onboard, pci, pcx, pcx2 etc. i think he needs to set that one. I think its picking the slot he has the lsi and the bios is reading the priority wrong or he needs to get that card in the bottom x16 slot. set his raid up on x4 slot and then he can move it around wherever he wants so he can get the full x8 bandwidth.
you agree?

mk get your ass in here while we are on. let us know what is going on.

just to be clear:
My RAID itself works perfectly fine.
Also the controller is recognized and loaded by the BIOS without any error or anything strange.
That it is why it took until I needed WebBIOS for me to discover something was wrong...

Also WebBIOS used to work very well (I setup the RAID5 with it)

About the slots:
See above...

[Computurd]

hopefully it will fix the issue...one thing though is this issue cropping up ONLY after the new firmware?
i have heard of others who take everything off of the ich and being able to get in the webbios.

Also, just throwing it out there, i am sure that you are using the MSM, correct? that will help, there are only a few settings that you cannot adjust in there. you can do most everything on the card from within the OS with the Megaraid Storage Manager.

[Mastakilla]

hopefully it will fix the issue...one thing though is this issue cropping up ONLY after the new firmware?
i have heard of others who take everything off of the ich and being able to get in the webbios.

Also, just throwing it out there, i am sure that you are using the MSM, correct? that will help, there are only a few settings that you cannot adjust in there. you can do most everything on the card from within the OS with the Megaraid Storage Manager.

I don't know if it is because of the new LSI firmware. I just know that I installed the new firmware in between. I am now using the old firmware again and that didn't help...

I tried removing everything from all controllers (including ICH) already, but it didn't help.. I just didnt try the CMOS clearing yet...

I couldn't find the possibility to do an on Online Virtual Drive Expansion using MSM, but on 2nd thought I also don't want to do that (MS 12h+ without a bluescreen? possible... but also very possible of not... )

btw:
does it matter if I detach the SATA cable only from the SSD and not from the mobo? Also the DVDROM (IDE) I just removed the power, but left the IDE cable attached...

[Computurd]

i would disconnect all cables. resetting the CMOS is going to be crucial here...what is causing the problem is a misread of the boot order on your board. if you have a place to save profiles in your mobo bios that would be key. just save a profile, reset cmos, then reload profile. of course if you are having no issues....dont know if you would want to do it now or wait until you need to absolutely do it.

[trans am]

i would disconnect all cables. resetting the CMOS is going to be crucial here...what is causing the problem is a misread of the boot order on your board. if you have a place to save profiles in your mobo bios that would be key. just save a profile, reset cmos, then reload profile. of course if you are having no issues....dont know if you would want to do it now or wait until you need to absolutely do it.

exacly. what I always do I after I set up my set I note which sas sata connector number is by each serial number on my ssd drive. for example you have cable header 0 from the lsi so i match it to the ssd that has the lowest number at the end of the serial like this

xxxxxxxxxx501 = sas sata connector 0
xxxxxxxxxx402 = sas sata connector 1
xxxxxxxxxx103 = sas sata connector 2
xxxxxxxxxx125 = sas sata conncetor 3

take a piece of tape cut the same number of pieces as number of drives you have attached then stick each one on the back of the drive corresponding to the same port cable number as the connection you used to set up the raid. 0 -0
1-1
2-2
3-3

if you ever need to take drives off you always know which drive was connected to the connector off the lsi card. mixing the wrong drive can screw the raid set and you are back where you started.


reset the cmos and follow the directions i posted above. if it doesnt work start moving the card around the a differnent x16 slot

just make sure you discharge the board everytime you move cards out. I killed my 5850 last week this way. kill the psu switch and then hold the power to the board for 10 sec. then hit it again just to make sure.
now you can remove your cards and ram.

[Mastakilla]

thanks again for the tips...

I just tried:
* removing all IDE / SATA cables on the MOBO itself (had to remove the videocard for that)
* removed the 2 new HDs from the LSI RAID
* Cleared CMOS
* Booted (no OS)
* Rebooted and went in to the BIOS
* Disabled all onboard controllers (except ICH which cant be disabled), USB, firewire, USB3, onboard sound and all lan ports
* Checked HD boot priority (RAID is first, "bootable add-in cards) is second... don't know how to disable that.. I also tried to set it as first btw)
* First boot device is HD, the rest is disabled
* rebooted
* hit ctrl-h and again it sais it will start WebBIOS after the post (so it did detect ctrl-h), but it doesn't do it

[trans am]

okay look at the lsi card. on the back there are 4 pins with jumpers on them. the same place on the lsi pcb at the tail end where the power connectors on a vga card would be. I have all the jumpers off. I think there is a way if you look in the manual to clear the cmos and revert to default settings on the actual card. what do you see on that tail end of jumpers. we need to reset that card to factory settings some how.