[ale] Super Micro woes - Middle riser not working

Jim Kinney jim.kinney at gmail.com
Thu Aug 18 11:05:09 EDT 2016


Had a similar issue. Cause was frustrating and not readily resolvable.

Just because the riser is plugged into a x16 PCIe slot on the mobo
doesn't really mean the slot has x16 signalling!

The supermicro page with all docs for that board are here:
https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10DRU-i_.cfm

On the riser card that may be bad that should be a silk-screen model
number. Verify that is a correct on using the compatibility matrix on
the web page.

I use almost exclusively SuperMicro gear (best bang for the buck that
I've found). I deal with a vendor in CA called AcmeMicro. There is a
mostly local group, SED International you can contact.
https://www.supermicro.com/wheretobuy/namerica.cfm?rgn=101&cmp=10272

My person at AcmeMicro (yes. I know. Roadrunner cartoons.) is Selene
Huang and I work with her exclusively by email. seleneh at acmemicro.com
If you have an incorrect riser, she can get you the correct one. She
just dug up a pair of 7m Mellanox IB cables and overnighted them to me
and the total price was better than CDWG with 2 day shipping. Granted,
shipping an entire machine out to CA sucks the bucks but I've done it
before and they fixed things.

On Thu, 2016-08-18 at 14:22 +0000, Lightner, Jeffrey wrote:
> 
> 
> We have a system with a Super Micro MB model X10DRU-i+.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > The 4 PCI slots in the right riser (when viewed from back of unit)
are all functional.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > > The PCI slot at the top of the middle riser does not appear to be
functional at all. I had attempted to put an HBA in this slot and
another in slot
> > > >  3 of the right riser. On boot the HBA in slot 3 of the right riser
was recognized and I was able to configure it in my OS and it was
shown by Linux lspci. However the other HBA placed in the top slot of
the middle riser did not show up in POST or in lspci.
> 
> 
> > > > On swapping those 2 HBAs between each other the one that previously
did not show up in POST or lspci now shows up in both. However, the
one moved to the middle riser's top PCI slot no longer shows up in
lspci even though the kernel driver for it loaded successfully.
> 
> 
> > > Additionally we previously found the 2 x RJ45 ports (ostensibly 10
GigE copper) at the base of the middle riser did not get link lights
when attached to a switch.
> 
> 
> 
> > > I suspect there is an issue with this riser but the manual for this
mother board doesn't really help me much and doesn't appear to
specifically discuss the riser configurations.
>  
> Does anyone know where I could find documentation on such a riser?
>  
> Has anyone seen this issue and gotten it resolved?
>  
> > Is there an local (Atlanta Metro) source for Super Micro based
servers and/or replacement parts?  
> 
>  
> Server is running RHEL 6.8.
>  
> Please do not suggest as the seller’s laughable tech support has:
> 1)     
> > > > Reseating the riser or the HBA.   The riser got reseated each time I
put in an HBA because one must remove the riser to do that.  Also
once I realized the issue was the riser I of course paid special
attention to reseating it yet again.
> 2)     
> > > > PCI bus flooding based on the HBAs installed in the right riser.   I
might believe that if my issue was data flow after boot of the OS but
it wouldn’t explain why the network ports weren’t working before I
added new HBAs nor why the
> >  BIOS on the HBA is not shown during POST unless it is in the right
riser.
> 3)     
> > Returning the entire unit.   We can’t really have this system down
for 30 days.  
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Thank you
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his
own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain

http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
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