MSI Z77A-G41 and dual LSI/3WARE RAID Controller Cards

[SerratedAuto]

Hi guys,

I have a server that I just upgraded to an MSI Z77A-G41 motherboard and an Intel core i3-3210 processor. I also have dual LSI/3WARE 9750-8i RAID controllers that are PCI express 2.0 (x8 lane) compliant that I am using to manage the disk drives. The MSI Z77A-G41 has a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot.

I plugged the first LSI RAID controller into the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and got it to work. However, the second card is not recognized when I plug it into the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot.

Anyone have any experience with this motherboard?

 

[Automata]

According to the manual, both should work. Did you have these disk controllers previously or are they new? If you plug just one controller into that second slot, is it recognized (try both cards)?

Any reason that you are running two RAID cards and not one plus a HP SAS expander? That is what I'm running in my file server. This doesn't really fix your problem, I'm more curious than anything else.

 

[SerratedAuto]

Both cards were given to me out of an older system that was going to be tossed in the garbage. These cards are still like $500 and both of the ones I have include the battery backup units. A SAS expander would work, but why bother when I have another controller card?

The first controller card worked flawlessly in an older motherboard with only a single PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, and is currently working fine in the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot on this new motherboard. Both cards will work fine in the PCIe 3.0 slot, but neither will work in the PCIe 2.0 slot.

I'm starting to wonder if MSI is playing the game where the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot is designed to physically support an x16 card but only designed to run it at x4 speeds.

I'm assuming (after looking at the chipset block diagram), that the Z77 and the ivy bridge i3-3210 should have no problem supporting both chips at x8 speeds simultaneously?

 

[Automata]

The x16 vs x4 speed doesn't matter as it is just the number of lanes that are active. The card should run off of a 1x slot, as long as it physical fit. The processor is PCIe 2.0 and does 8x/8x (expansion options). Do you have another PCIe device you can try in the second slot to see if it works at all, preferably a video card? Maybe it is disabled in the BIOS?

The reason I mentioned the SAS expander is that you'd save money selling one of the RAID cards and buying the expander. It only costs $250 and you can have more than 8 drives per array.

 

[SerratedAuto]

Hmm....I'll give that a try after dinner. I have a spare GTX 465 lying around that should *hopefully* still work...

I was under the impression that the LSI 9750-8i was looking for a PCIe 2.0 x8 lane.

The SAS expander might work, but the ones I saw on newegg look like they're still expecting a PCIe 2.0 x8 socket.

 

[Automata]

The HP SAS expander I linked does not use the PCIe bus for data transfer as it does not communicate with the board. It only uses it for power. I wouldn't suggest this as a solution, but something to consider for the future.

 

[SerratedAuto]

So, the second PCIe 2.0 x16 port does in fact work (the video card couldn't fit with the hard drives installed, and to route the 6-pin power adapters to the video card would have required taking everything apart). I tested it with a PCIe 2.0 x1 gigabit LAN card.

 

[Automata]

If the port works, then this might be an incompatibility with the card in the second slot. That is pretty odd, though. Is there a BIOS update?

 

[SerratedAuto]

There is an update that claims "Improved PCI-E display card compatibility", so I'll flash that and let you know how it goes...

 

[SerratedAuto]

Well, now server 2012 doesn't boot. In the history of Windows Operating systems, I have never had more of a problem than with the win8/server 2012 systems....

 

[Automata]

You should be able to see the card before the operating system boots. You should be able to select the controller in the RAID BIOS by pressing an F key. I think LSI is F8/10/12, but it has been a long time since I've configured mine.

 

[SerratedAuto]

OK, it doesn't look like it had any effect. It's still not showing the second RAID controller....

 

[Automata]

If you know both cards function and both slots function, it sounds like an incompatibility issue with the motherboard. Desktop boards can act weird with RAID cards because they inject code. The companies simply don't write the BIOS with RAID cards in mind. Some handle this fine, others cause the board to not boot, other simply ignore the card, etc.

When I got my LSI 8708EM2, I had a hard time getting it working on my board. The board recognized the card and I could see everything starting up fine, but it refused to go into the card configuration. I randomly fixed the issue by pressing F8 during startup (Asus' "select device" screen), then selected anything, which caused it to come up. This was the only way for it to work on that board. My dual socket Opteron server that replaced it had absolutely no issues. The M1015 that got put in the Asus board also had no issues.

Since you know the board functions, you could go the route of the HP SAS expander. I really think that is a superior solution. You get to have many more ports for the RAID card, no loss in performance, it saves you money, and it should solve this problem readily. I believe it is either that or the board.

 

[Woomack]

I would try to disable any integrated SATA controllers. It's probably the same as on ASUS boards that you can use only 1 RAID controller ( on some boards up to 2 ) and any other won't be visible out of windows ( or won't be visible at all ).
You can also try to disable boot ROM in these controllers if system is booting from integrated one and check if system will see both pcie controllers. Then you can probably configure all in windows software skipping RAID ROM.

Many RAID controllers are acting weird on desktop boards mainly because there are usually 1-3 other controllers with RAID ROM. M1015 on X58 ASUS boards won't work with any JMicron or Marvell controller without issues. The same is also with 1/2 gen Revo drive, which is actually simple RAID too.