My 2 AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards not working

Hi everyone, i am having a problem and looking for your advice:

I have a server with 13 HDs. I recently installed my second AOC-SASLP-MV8 card in order to accommodate for a 13th HD. Everything worked well and i did a lot of copying, having no problems. I even did a succesful parity check.

After 1-2 weeks i had to move to my new apartment (i packed the server very carefully) and it now seems that my server does not recognize the 2 cards: it just locates the 4 disks connected through the mobo's SATA controller. It does not go through the usual steps of recognizing the cards, loading their bios and locating the attached HDs. It just starts loading unraid. It cannot be a malfunction of the cards because they both are not being recognized and both malfunctioning at the same time is highly improbable.

Any ideas would be very welcome...

PS:I can see 8 green lights turned on on both cards, while I have 8 disks connected to one and 1 on the other. I cannot remember if this is supposed to happen.

PS2: if it takes me some time to answer to any comments is because of the moving out. ISPs here need like 2-3 weeks to give you a new connection...

Dead mobo battery, thus CMOS clearing, is my best guess at the moment, or at least "keeping it simple" for now.  I've got 6 servers running 24/7, before I moved where I am now, I had 8.  I found three dead mobo batteries once I got everything setup at the new place.

So mobo BIOS settings and possibly MV8 BIOS settings, albeit, I believe they're in NVRAM on the MV8's, I forget.

Thanx, grandprix.

Well, i checked the bios settings and they were not changed. If my understanding is correct, if the mobo batteries were dead, the bios would have been reset. Additionally, I changed some parameters while trying to fix the problem and they were not reset when i restarted.

Dead mobo battery, thus CMOS clearing, is my best guess at the moment, or at least "keeping it simple" for now.  I've got 6 servers running 24/7, before I moved where I am now, I had 8.  I found three dead mobo batteries once I got everything setup at the new place.

 

So mobo BIOS settings and possibly MV8 BIOS settings, albeit, I believe they're in NVRAM on the MV8's, I forget.

 

Assuming you removed the cards before transporting (good idea) did you return same cards to same slots?

Don't mean the be the board pedant but I don't know your comfort level...

- Unplug from power source & hit the power button

- Remove unRAID flash drive

- Unplug MV8 cards from the motherboard

- Restore power

- Boot to where it complains about no boot device.

- Unplug from power source & hit the power button

- Return cards to original positions.

- Restore power source

- Boot and watch for the card detection

If it sees the cards put your unRAID flash drive back in and reboot.

Assuming you're getting as far as being able to access the unRaid server menu and/or unmenu, then please post your syslog

@cyrnel:i did not remove the cards (at least they were tigthly screwed in place). Just for the sake of it i tried swapping them or even using just one each time but nothing changed

@grandprix: i can post it when i get home but i doubt it will be useful since the cards should be recognized before the OS is loaded. Even if the usb stick were not plugged, they should be recognized under normal cicumstances...

Can anyone remind me if all 8 green lights under the card are supposed to be turned on even if only one HD is plugged?

@grandprix: i can post it when i get home but i doubt it will be useful since the cards should be recognized before the OS is loaded. Even if the usb stick were not plugged, they should be recognized under normal cicumstances...

 

Can anyone remind me if all 8 green lights under the card are supposed to be turned on even if only one HD is plugged?

For future reference, I wouldn't go swapping cables and cards and such.  The only variables were that you moved, thus the server was without power for however long  and you added a second card for the 13th drive -- no need to introduce more variables to the mix.  See, I did not realize that it the cards weren't even showing their BIOS screens (i.e. thus being recognized -- hardware side).  Even without that displaying, they may still be recognized, simply not working.  Loose cables and/or bad hard drives have disabled the entire card in previous situations for some.

INT 13h interrupt in the cards BIOS set?

On my MV8 cards of which I have three of them (two in main, and one in a server I have sitting here waiting to go to a friend once I get to his state), the LEDs are lit only for the "channels" that have HD's on them.

*Disclaimer, if something that I just posted makes absolutely no sense, know that I just woke up and did not have my morning coffee/smoke yet.

 

For future reference, I wouldn't go swapping cables and cards and such.  The only variables were that you moved, thus the server was without power for however long  and you added a second card for the 13th drive -- no need to introduce more variables to the mix.  See, I did not realize that it the cards weren't even showing their BIOS screens (i.e. thus being recognized -- hardware side).  Even without that displaying, they may still be recognized, simply not working.  Loose cables and/or bad hard drives have disabled the entire card in previous situations for some.

 

INT 13h interrupt in the cards BIOS set?

 

On my MV8 cards of which I have three of them (two in main, and one in a server I have sitting here waiting to go to a friend once I get to his state), the LEDs are lit only for the "channels" that have HD's on them.

 

*Disclaimer, if something that I just posted makes absolutely no sense, know that I just woke up and did not have my morning coffee/smoke yet.

 

You are right, i just switched them when i was really desperate as a last effort... They are back to their original position now.

I think int 13h was set, but, obviously, i cannot enter the cards bios now and verify that. Also, the fact that all LEDs are lit in both my cards seems to indicate something wrong with at least the one that has only one HD connected. Or maybe there is a problem with the mobo.

PS: Thanx for the help, just the fact that you answer before you even have a coffee means a lot

Couple things come to mind....

1 - Detach the drive cables. Record though where they were are plugged into. But remove all the drive cables and then see if the card will at least post BIOS. Maybe a bad drive/cable is freezing it. Weird you have all the activity lights active.

2 - Move just the card to any other computer to see if on boot up you get the cards BIOS. This would rule out dead card.

As unlikely as it sounds, maybe when you plugged in the system at the new place, some sort of power surge may have messed up a card or drive...

Shawn

I've just received 3 AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards and non of them are functioning correctly.  I've done some extensive testing with different motherboards, ram, cpu, power supply, hard drives and even some other 8-port controllers.  Only the new SASLP-MV8's are failing. 

I think there is a bad batch of these cards out there at the moment.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

Initially the worked for me.  As soon as I tried to build parity there were lots of errors.  I got mine from SuperBiiz as well.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

 

Initially the worked for me.  As soon as I tried to build parity there were lots of errors.  I got mine from SuperBiiz as well.

Have you swapped them out for known good controllers?  Could it be the motherboard?  Seems unlikely you'd get 2 duds.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

 

Initially the worked for me.  As soon as I tried to build parity there were lots of errors.  I got mine from SuperBiiz as well.

 

Have you swapped them out for known good controllers?  Could it be the motherboard?  Seems unlikely you'd get 2 duds.

I've done some extensive testing with different motherboards, ram, cpu, power supply, hard drives and even some other 8-port controllers.  Only the new SASLP-MV8's are failing. 

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

Prostuff1, could you test building parity with those cards?  I'm seeing lots of errors.  I'm working with Limetech, SuperBiiz and Supermicro to investigate this.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

 

Prostuff1, could you test building parity with those cards?  I'm seeing lots of errors.  I'm working with Limetech, SuperBiiz and Supermicro to investigate this.

Yeah, when I get home tonight I will be doing some preclear testing and what not.  I started a few last night and over half past the test, but some did fail.  These are new drives (to me but not new be any stretch) so I do not know if I should blame the cards or the drives.  I am going to systematically go through the drives when I get home and see what happens.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

 

Prostuff1, could you test building parity with those cards?  I'm seeing lots of errors.  I'm working with Limetech, SuperBiiz and Supermicro to investigate this.

 

Yeah, when I get home tonight I will be doing some preclear testing and what not.  I started a few last night and over half past the test, but some did fail.  These are new drives (to me but not new be any stretch) so I do not know if I should blame the cards or the drives.  I am going to systematically go through the drives when I get home and see what happens.

What hard drives are you using?  Mine are all WD20EARS using -A flag.

I ordered 2 from Superbiiz not to long ago and both of them are working correctly from what I can tell.  Still need to load them full of drives, but initial testing showed them to be fine.

 

Prostuff1, could you test building parity with those cards?  I'm seeing lots of errors.  I'm working with Limetech, SuperBiiz and Supermicro to investigate this.

 

Yeah, when I get home tonight I will be doing some preclear testing and what not.  I started a few last night and over half past the test, but some did fail.  These are new drives (to me but not new be any stretch) so I do not know if I should blame the cards or the drives.  I am going to systematically go through the drives when I get home and see what happens.

 

What hard drives are you using?  Mine are all WD20EARS using -A flag.

I will start building parity on the array tomorrow.  The disk I was having issues with are 250GB drives.  I was also trying to preclear nearly 15 drives at once... the server did not like that.  The 250GB disks were also set to power up in standby which seemed to be be playing not so nice with the SASLP card..