• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Dell PERC 6i T774H RAID controller various problem.

mxnerd

mxnerd

Diamond Member
i just bought this a few days ago.

Here is the description for the part.
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...=pub&sku=t774h

The one I bought is this
Dell PERC 6/i T774H SAS RAID Controller + Battery&Cable
http://www.ebay.com/itm/230673637926

I bought a SAS to 4 SATA cable to pair with the card, but the controller can't see any SATA drive.

I installed LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager 9.0 and the software can't find any drives attached, either.

So is the card bad or this card just won't recognize SATA drive and only SAS drive can be used?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Ayah said:
Is it a straight-through cable?
http://blog.rogersoles.com/technology/sff-8484-to-4-x-sata-cables/

If it's a backplane cable, your drives will not be detected because RX and TX are swapped.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I did not know there are different cables. The one I bought is http://www.pimfg.com/Product-Detail/SAS32-SATA74-20

It's a 2-mile away warehouse store to me, so I get one yesterday. It's cheaply made, and probably vendor does not know what they are selling (the description does specify (SFF-8484 though).

I have a 3-drive Kingwin KF-3000-BK SATA hot-swap cage. I tested the drives (Seagate & WD 750GB) inside and outside the cage and the card can't see any of them.

I think I will make a trip to Fry's and get a more expensive part (http://www.frys.com/product/5128886) and try again.
 
Last edited:
i've got a $50 LSI raid controller with 2 fan-out cables (SF-8087 -> 4 SAS/SATA each) - 8 total connectors for drives. raid-0/1/1e/10/10e - or no raid bios.

Might be cheaper 🙂
 
It's the cable! I made a trip to Fry's store and came back. Tested and the controller finally saw all 3 750GB drives!

Verdict: Do not buy anything that's too cheap. The first cable is going back.
 
Last edited:
Running good for several days. Today I shutdown the machine and then restart. Now it won't boot into the raid or even let me get into configuration utility via CTRL-R.

Unplug & replug the controller, no use. What's wrong?
 
I unplugged the controller and plugged it into another machine and it boots fine!

Plug it back to 1st machine and it boots fine too. It still won't recognize CTRL-R key, however. Then after swapping out the USB keyboard with a PS/2 keyboard, now it recognize the keystroke! How frustrating!

This is exactly the problems of PC platform. You just don't know when a component will start to act funky.
 
Last edited:
Have you flashed the firmware on the card? Having used many LSI cards in the past (Intel also rebadges LSI) I have found if they're not responsive during POST a firmware flash often fixes the problem. I don't know if it's because early firmware is buggy as hell or what, but I've had to do this many many times before.

Although given that it works with a PS/2 keyboard... who knows. Are you using this in a server or workstation?
 
Actually it's acting funky again today after I shutdown. I move it the whole disk array (4x500GB Seagte 2.5" Momentus HD) and controller to 2nd machine and no use. Always stuck at "Verifying DMI Pool Data..."on both machine.

Yes, I plan to set up an ESXi 5 server. I believe the firmware BIOS is current. But I'll check again.
 
Are you booting from this RAID array? A quick look around seems to indicate that you may have a corrupt MBR. Would explain why it happens on both if you're booting off the array.
 
Yes, I do boot from the RAID-5 array. I created 3 virtual disks (VDs).

1st is 60GB Win7 VD, 2nd is 19GB ESXi Boot VD, 3rd is ESXi DataStore VD.

Actually I was able to get into RAID controller setup using CTRL-R to change boot VD from 2nd VD to 1st VD once on second machine. But right after that, the machine won't pass the "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." screen.

If it's a corrupt MBR on virtaul disk, how can I fix that?

I also wonder whether it's a overheat problem, since there is no fan on the controller chipset, only a plain black heatsink.
 
mxnerd said:
This is exactly the problems of PC platform. You just don't know when a component will start to act funky.
Click to expand...

You're using a component customized and marketed strictly as an accessory for a specific line of servers in your whitebox PC.

What did you expect?

Get a Dell server, and I'm sure it'll work fine 😛
 
mxnerd said:
Yes, I do boot from the RAID-5 array. I created 3 virtual disks (VDs).

1st is 60GB Win7 VD, 2nd is 19GB ESXi Boot VD, 3rd is ESXi DataStore VD.

Actually I was able to get into RAID controller setup using CTRL-R to change boot VD from 2nd VD to 1st VD once on second machine. But right after that, the machine won't pass the "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." screen.

If it's a corrupt MBR on virtaul disk, how can I fix that?

I also wonder whether it's a overheat problem, since there is no fan on the controller chipset, only a plain black heatsink.
Click to expand...

I was a little confused initially by your description until I realised that the VDs were created in the RAID controller. It does sound overly complicated though, I'm tempted to fire up an LSI controller at work to see how you've set it up. That will have to wait till tomorrow though.

On topic, you should simply be able to reinstall ESXi over the top to fix the boot problem with ESXi. Takes all of 5 minutes and if you're using this as a play VM box, no biggie. From the sounds of it though, you're also using this as a Win7 boot drive too? Haven't tried that, but given Win7's interesting set up methods, this could cause you a bunch of grief if not done properly. By default Win7 will not install the MBR on it's own drive if it detects another drive in the system, it will put it on that for 'recovery' purposes. Which is why SSD users disconnect their HDD when installing Win7. Could also be the cause of your issues.

And finally, heat could be an issue for that card. Most server controllers are passively cooled as the expectation is the chassis will do 99% of the cooling for you. However, unless you've worked the controller particularly hard (rebuilding the array, intensive I/O), I wouldn't think it's an issue.

Hope that helps!
 
Hi Gorthan.

Yes, I'm just playing with the controller and ESXi at this time. I thought it might be convient to have a Win7 VD so I can run LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager and see what's happening under the hood. I'll recreate VDs and ditch Win7 VD later. I don't know Win7 won't install its MBR if it detects other drives, thanks for this great info!

Anyway, I couldn't wait and build a new system using Intel platform. And the system no longer stuck. I wonder whether it's a not-enough-power or not-compatible syndrome for the previous 2 AMD machines, since the new machine has a larger 550w power supply. And I guess it's not an overheat issue.

Thanks again.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top