pe2900: pci-e card not detected

[Noah Dain]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 12:56 AM, Erik Anderson <erikerik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Noah - I had the exact same issue with a similar SATA card about a
> year ago. I spent many hours on the phone with Dell support, finally
> finding out that the PCIe implementation on the PowerEdge servers
> doesn't support most third-party mass storage cards.
>
> Needless to say, this frustrated me incredibly. Why would Dell
> intentionally limit the hardware devices their servers are compatible
> with? Seems pretty shady to me - perhaps a veiled attempt at forcing
> customert to the PERC cards.
>
> -Erik

Thanks for the reply.  That is what i suspected after reading about
people having various issues trying to get video cards working in the
pe2900s, and the bios changelog which had an update to allow newer
perc cards to work in the system.  But I didn't think Dell would stoop
that low on a server.

so dell, just what can I put in MY CLIENT's server?

after this fiasco, I'm recommending hp or supermicros from here on
out.  Of course, that doesn't do this particular client any good.
Thanks for making me look stupid, and losing business (it's not the
first time dell hasn't come through in the last two years).

-noah

>
> On 11/12/08, Noah Dain <noahdain at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I recently purchased a pci-express 1x esata card for a 2900 (silicon
>> image 3132 chip).  It's the only card in the system (besides a perc
>> 5/i).
>>
>> The card does not show up at all.  Not in the bios irq list, the OS's
>> regular kernel, nor knoppix.
>>
>> To troubleshoot:
>> - manually loaded the sata_sil24 driver, still nothing.
>> - plugged it into a workstation.  showed up and worked fine (xp and
>> knoppix).
>> - thinking that it was perhaps the card's firmware, I wiped it with a
>> utility from silicon image.
>> - with erased firmware, I plugged it into a workstation.  showed up
>> and worked fine (xp and knoppix).
>> - plugged it into the 2900: still no sign of it at all.
>> - manually loaded the sata_sil24 driver, still nothing.
>> - updated system firmware (bios, perc, backplane) and still nothing.
>>
>> -noah
>>
>>
>> --- only system info below ---
>>
>> dmidecode snippet:
>> '''
>> Base Board Information
>>         Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
>>         Product Name: 0TM757
>>         Version: A00
>>         Serial Number: ..XXXXXXXXXXXXX.
>> '''
>> lspci:
>> '''
>> 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000X Chipset Memory Controller
>> Hub (rev 12)
>> 00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x4 Port 2 (rev 12)
>> 00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x4 Port 3 (rev 12)
>> 00:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x4 Port 4 (rev 12)
>> 00:05.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x4 Port 5 (rev 12)
>> 00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x8 Port 6-7 (rev 12)
>> 00:07.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset PCI Express
>> x4 Port 7 (rev 12)
>> 00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset DMA
>> Engine (rev 12)
>> 00:10.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Error
>> Reporting Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:10.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Error
>> Reporting Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:10.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Error
>> Reporting Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:11.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved
>> Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:13.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset Reserved
>> Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:15.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD
>> Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:16.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 5000 Series Chipset FBD
>> Registers (rev 12)
>> 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset PCI
>> Express Root Port 1 (rev 09)
>> 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
>> UHCI USB Controller #1 (rev 09)
>> 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
>> UHCI USB Controller #2 (rev 09)
>> 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
>> UHCI USB Controller #3 (rev 09)
>> 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
>> UHCI USB Controller #4 (rev 09)
>> 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset
>> EHCI USB2 Controller (rev 09)
>> 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d9)
>> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset LPC
>> Interface Controller (rev 09)
>> 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB IDE Controller (rev
>> 09)
>> 01:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 80333 Segment-A PCI
>> Express-to-PCI Express Bridge
>> 01:00.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 80333 Segment-B PCI
>> Express-to-PCI Express Bridge
>> 02:0e.0 RAID bus controller: Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID controller 5
>> 04:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom EPB PCI-Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev c3)
>> 05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708
>> Gigabit Ethernet (rev 12)
>> 06:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express
>> Upstream Port (rev 01)
>> 06:00.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express to
>> PCI-X Bridge (rev 01)
>> 07:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express
>> Downstream Port E1 (rev 01)
>> 07:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6311ESB/6321ESB PCI Express
>> Downstream Port E2 (rev 01)
>> 08:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom EPB PCI-Express to PCI-X Bridge (rev c3)
>> 09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708
>> Gigabit Ethernet (rev 12)
>> 10:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc ES1000 (rev 02)
>> '''
>>
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>
>
> --
> Erik Anderson
> http://andersonfam.org
>



-- 
Noah Dain
"The beatings will continue, until morale improves" - the Management