Install IBM M1015(lsi 9240-8i) onto MSI z77a-gd65

[nerding808]

Please help, I am trying to set up an IBM M1015 raid card on my MSI z77a-gd65 motherboard. I am unable to access the webBios when booting up. I do not see any option to boot from the raid card at all. I am at total loss after days of trying to figure this one. I want to hook up four sata 6gbps ssd's to it. Thank you for your help and time in advance.

Specs:
CPU: Core i5-3570k
MOBO: MSI z77a-gd65
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1333
SSD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3
OD: Samsung Blu-ray Drive
Hotswap: IcyDock 4x 2.5" from 5.25" SAS/SATA 6gbps
Mellanox Infinihost 3 ex Infiniband HCA
IBM ServeRaid M1015(lsi 9240-8i)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Power: 750 watt OCZ Fatality

 

[rolli59]

According to this it does not support your OS http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0740.html

 

[nerding808]

According to this it does not support your OS http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0740.html

Thank you for replying. I looked on the redbooks as well and I also looked at lsi's website for the os support list for the SAS 9240-8i and it shows that the card supports windows 7/2008 32 and 64 bit OS. I am wondering if I need to flash the controller to lsi reference firmware, and if so how to do that.

 

[rolli59]

It probably has instructions how to do it with the download.

 

[thunderdan168]

Please help, I am trying to set up an IBM M1015 raid card on my MSI z77a-gd65 motherboard. I am unable to access the webBios when booting up. I do not see any option to boot from the raid card at all. I am at total loss after days of trying to figure this one. I want to hook up four sata 6gbps ssd's to it. Thank you for your help and time in advance.

Specs:
CPU: Core i5-3570k
MOBO: MSI z77a-gd65
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1333
SSD: 60GB OCZ Agility 3
OD: Samsung Blu-ray Drive
Hotswap: IcyDock 4x 2.5" from 5.25" SAS/SATA 6gbps
Mellanox Infinihost 3 ex Infiniband HCA
IBM ServeRaid M1015(lsi 9240-8i)
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Power: 750 watt OCZ Fatality

I believe you will need to enable SLI mode on your mobo in order to make the controller shows up at POST

 

[compdoc]

This is pasted from a review I just submitted to newegg.com:


My 9240-8i came with a firmware so old that its version is no longer listed in the current README. I updated to the latest as soon as I got it: Version: 20.10.1-0107. The current firmware from LSI has not been updated for almost a year, which may explain the issues I've had.

To enter the card's 'WebBios' to manually configure an array, you have to hit Control-H at boot when asked, and then hit the F11 or F12 key to bring up your motherboard's boot menu. Once the boot menu pops up, you have to select "PCI raid adapter" to boot from, which then enters the setup. Stupid, I know. You must do this even if you do not have a UEFI bios - at least on the systems I've tried it on.

If you do have a UEFI bios: (comes on newer motherboards)

1) To even see the raid card detecting the drives, you must configure your motherboard's bios 'Storage Boot Option' to allow Legacy cards to work. Mine has the options 'Legacy First' or 'Legacy Only' as well as the UEFI options. Legacy First or UEFI First is best.
2) Disable 'Full Screen Logo'.
3) The Gigabyte motherboard has CSM Support set to 'Always', and Boot Mode Selection set to 'UEFI and Legacy'.
4) On my Gigabyte, I also have to select the Display Boot Option (video) to 'Legacy Only' or 'Legacy First' to prevent a blank screen. Ubuntu doesn't seem to like UEFI display settings. (this may need more testing)
5) Once you’ve created the array, you can set it back to boot using 'UEFI first' or 'UEFI only'. UEFI First works best for me, as it allows the 9240-8i to display drive detection and other info at boot.

Once you install your OS using 'Legacy' or 'UEFI', the OS might have problems booting afterwards if you switch the option in the bios later. So set the option you need before installing and keep it that way. Only lots of testing will tell you which way is best.

During testing, I created a RAID 0 using two sata hard drives and whenever I ran the Gnome Disk Utility benchmark, the entire system would lock up. This did not happen when the two drives were configured as RAID 1, or when four SAS drives were set as Raid 5.

In Ubuntu, I tried to install the LSI gui program named 'MegaRAID Storage Manager' but while installing it wiped out my manual raid configuration on the card, and I could never get the program to run.

The 9240-8i has no memory cache that I know of and probably isn't the fastest card out there, but it works and after copying several hundred gigs worth of files to the array I believe it’s stable. I've just begun my tests, so I'll know more later.

compdoc