UCS C240M - PCIe SAS Controller

[David Boos]

I have two RAID controllers in my C240M server - one for disk (MegaRAID Cisco 12G SAS) and one for the tape drive (HP P212).  If the slot for the P212 is enabled during boot, the server goes into a reboot cycle. If I disable the slot, it boots fine, and if I enable the slot after boot it works fine. I'm guessing I have a policy missing somewhere - any ideas?

[Kirk J]

Greetings.

Need to start with disclaimer that only equipment listed in spec sheet  is tested and supported.

Other things to try,, make sure option ROM for the PCI slot with HP P212 is disabled.  Maybe adjust the gen speed down for the PCI slot.

If you are talking about enabling the pci-e slot via the CIMC after it boots,,, that actually takes a reboot to take affect, so not sure that is really testing it being enabled. Does your OS actually see and use the HP P212 in that state?

Make sure you reboot the server after you have disabled the option ROM.

If you do get it to work, be aware the power/cooling profiling will not have an entry for the foreign card, and the fans will probably run in high mode.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[David Boos]

I thought it was strange as well - I disable the slot for the template, save it, wait for the C240 to boot, then enable it.  I decided this time to disable the slot, reboot, then check to see if it was present without re-enabling it.  It was still there, and the tape drive was still available so I am not sure what disabling actually does, if it disables it as a BIOS boot option only or what exactly.

I'm setting the option in BIOS Policies > Advanced > LOM and PCIe Slots > Slot 1 - Disabled.

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Greetings.

So is it the line that says "PCIe SLOT:X  OptionROM" enable/disable that you are enabling/disabling?

To actual disable the slot as a whole, you would need to change the PCIe slot link speed to 'disabled' to actually disable the PCIe slot.

It makes sense if you are disabling the OptionROM for the specific slot, and it appears to be working, as the option rom may be trying to poll the other storage controller card, and causing the issue.

Sounds like you just need to leave the OptionROM disabled for the PCIe slot the HP 212 card is in.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[David Boos]

Thanks, you're right, that fixed it.  I thought it was disabling the slot entirely, but really had nothing to do with it. Thanks for making sense of the situation.