Hello,
I have several PE2950 III's. They're all equipped identically, with PCIe risers, two Intel NICs, DRAC, and PERC6/I RAID. All firmware and bios have been flashed to current within the last 6 months, and they're all working fine.
All systems work great in this configuration. It was time to add some external storage, so I picked up an MD1000 expansion unit and two SAS cards - One PERC6/E and one Dell SAS 6gbps HBA.
I removed the working Intel NIC from one of the x8 PCIe slots and installed the SAS 6gbps HBA. For unknown reasons, it is not detected during POST. I don't see the "Press CTRL-C for blah blah".
I figured that's weird, so I reseated the PCIe riser, reseated the SAS 6gbps HBA, and rebooted. No luck. No card detected - no messages from it (like Press CTRL-C), and nothing in the BIOS when looking at IRQ assignment.
I tried a few more times, and oddly enough it worked yesterday. I was able to access the MD1000 and things seemed OK. I rebooted today, and it vanished! No more SAS 6gbps HBA!
I figured I might as well try the PERC6/E card (I have two on hand). Neither are detected during POST/boot, and neither appear in the IRQ assignment settings in the BIOS.
I figured it might be that PE2950, maybe it's riser is toast or something. I tried a different PE2950 III, same config as described above, followed the same procedure, and no cards recognized.
I'm at a complete loss.. Are all three cards bad?! Am I doing something wrong? Is there anything I should try?