ProLiant-DL380-G2 + LSI MegaRAID-SCSI-320-2 == disaster

[Rob Urban]

I'm trying to get OpenBSD running on a ProLiant DL380 G2, which has an on-board Compaq Smart Array 5i RAID controller. Unfortunately, there is no support in OpenBSD (yet) for monitoring of the Smart Array 5i.

Thus I procured an LSI-Logic MegaRAID SCSI 320-2 controller and stuck it in.

As soon as I have defined a logical drive on the MegaRAID controller *with* a valid boot block, the systems hangs in BIOS, just after the MegaRAID BIOS has printed its messages. It looks like this:

BIOS> Compaq Remote Insight (Hit [F8] to configure)

(the above line comes from the system BIOS, just before it passes control
to the MegaRAID BIOS)

BIOS> LSI MegaRAID BIOS Version G121 Dec 09, 2004
BIOS> Copyright(c) 2004 LSI Logic Corp.
BIOS> HA -0 (Bus 7 Dev 4) MegaRAID SCSI 320-2
BIOS> Standard FW 1L47 DRAM=12MB (SDRAM)
BIOS> 1 Logical Drives found on the host adapter.
BIOS> 1 Logical Drive(s) handled by BIOS
BIOS> Press or to Run MegaRAID Configuration Utility
BIOS> or Press for WebBIOS

***hang***

If I go into the configuration utility and delete the logical drive, the BIOS does not hang. If I disable the MegaRAID BIOS, the system BIOS also does not hang. The system BIOS only hangs when a logical drive is configured *and* there is a valid boot block on the logical drive.

If I overwrite the boot block, thus making it invalid, the proliant no longer hangs in the BIOS.

In the ProLiant BIOS configuration, there are two menus related to boot order, a "Standard Boot Order" menu, where I can rearrange CDROM and Floppy (and nothing else), and a "Boot Controller Order" menu, where I can have:

1. Compaq Integrated Smart Array (SA)
2. Compaq Integrated PCI IDE controller (IDE)
3. RAID Mass Storage Controller (the MegaRAID)

I can make the MegaRAID first and the SA last (the IDE cannot be moved), but it makes no difference. The SA appears in this menu even if it has been disabled from the "PCI devices" BIOS menu.

I also tried removing the SA entirely (which involved flipping a "SCSI Interlock Disable Switch" in order to get the system to agree to power up).
In this case the SA disappears from the "Boot Controller Order" menu, and the MegaRAID is fixed as the first device, but it STILL HANGS IN BIOS.

Does anyone have some magic ProLiant trick for getting this miserable system to boot from the MegaRAID controller?

This seems to be pretty clearly a ProLiant BIOS problem.

Rob Urban

[Rob Urban]

I'll answer my question meself.

Dell sells the identical controller under the name of PERC 4/DC (PowerEdge Extendable RAID Controller). For reasons only known to Dell, they have their own firmware, in this case version 351X. If I flash the controller with the Dell firmware, the BIOS hang goes away.

The firmware is too large to attach here, so if someone needs it and cannot find it at Dell, s/he should send me a mail.

-RU