HELP – LSI 9300-8i not detected!

TrueNAS General
1

I have the following configuration:

  • Motherboard: ASRock B760M-ITX/D4

  • CPU: Intel i5-12600K

  • RAM: 16GB Kingston DDR4 3600 CL17

  • Storage: Corsair T710 1TB, 4x WD Red SA500 NAS SATA SSDs

  • HBA: Inspur LSI 9300-8i SATA/SAS HBA Controller (IT-Mode, 12Gb PCIe x8, 9311-8i ZFS)

I have already tried various BIOS settings:

  • Above 4G Decoding: Enabled

  • C.A.M. (Clever Access Memory): Disabled

  • VMD Configuration: Disabled

  • PCIE1 Link Speed: Gen3

  • PCIe ASPM Support: Disabled

  • Secure Boot: Disabled

  • CSM (Compatibility Support Module): Disabled

I am “new” to TrueNAS and have already assembled the hardware mentioned above. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything helpful in previous posts—please go easy on me if I’ve made an absolute rookie mistake.

The LSI 9300-8i LED 65 is blinking once per second—the “heartbeat” is present. However, it is not being recognized by the motherboard. I have also already tried the B5/B6 “tape trick” (SMBus mod), but with no success.

Can anyone help? Is this the wrong board or the wrong HBA for this setup?

Thanks in advance!

2

That should just work

3

Do you have a second PC to test the HBA in? Maybe it was DOA.

That is correct but not helpful at all imho :sweat_smile:

1 Like
4

Is the HBA not seen ? - check with lspci -nvv orsas2flash -listall
Or just the discs ? - check with lsblk

5

It should, but it doesn’t …

6

Of course, I have already tested the card in another system with an MSI Z790-P motherboard, and the result was the same. I have already contacted the seller (a reputable dealer)—he mentioned that he isn’t surprised, as a) this HBA card is designed ONLY for server motherboards and b) it is a bit older and therefore likely isn’t recognized by the [consumer] motherboard. Consequently, he does not consider this a valid case for a warranty claim or return.

7

The HBA card is not being detected, even though the Heartbeat LED 65 is flashing. According to the seller, this confirms that the card is not defective. How high is the probability that ‘only’ the communication lanes are faulty, rendering the card useless?

8

If you can’t pull up the data with any of the following, you have other problems. I expect sas3flash since you mentioned a 9300. Did you have excellent cooling set up on this card. Lots of air flow? Specs are 150-200 linear feet per minute. If card was working, as shipped, maybe you overheated it. See @Farout post too.

    lspci
    sudo sas2flash -list
    sudo sas3flash -list
    sudo storcli show all
1 Like
9

I’d say that’s bullshit :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
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It is not listed in lspci; therefore, I cannot communicate with the LSI 9300-8i at all.

EDIT:

I think the airflow is sufficient; in that case, the card should at least appear during a cold start if that were the problem…

EDIT:

I managed to boot into a UEFI Shell and ran the official Broadcom/LSI tool ‘sas3flash.efi -listall’. The tool returned: ‘No Avago SAS adapters found!’. This confirms that the card’s PCIe interface is not communicating with the motherboard at a hardware level, despite the heartbeat LED being active. So the card is “DOA” - correct?

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I think so too… he’s just relying on the manufacturer’s claims… it would be incredibly helpful if anyone else with the same motherboard has had success with this card! :smiley:

12

It looks like I have two options: a) order the same card again, or b) have the card checked at a PC repair shop…
I will probably try the latter tomorrow.

13

Shouldn’t you try a server repair shop :wink:

14

Any update? I have the same problem. I’m using maxsun MS-Terminator B760M D4 motherboard and i5-12600KF. The LSI 9300-8i is not listed in the lspci.

15

I had similar and intermittent problems with my 9300-16i. It’s basically just 2 of the same chip (9300-8i) with a bridge in between.

For me the card does not work with pcie gen 3. Same symptoms - the card is just not detected at all. On one system this causes a POST issue that leads to the motherboard resetting CMOS settings. On another system it posts and boots fine into the OS but the card is never active/detected.

In the end setting the motherboard to pcie gen 2 for the hba slot gets everything working fine. For my use case of spinning disks connected to the hba, even with 16 drives it should be enough bandwidth. Wouldn’t be if I were using SSDs. For the smaller number of drives of the 9300-8i I don’t think there would be any performance impact even with SSDs.