LSI Raid Card BBU issues :(

coolamasta · 5 Jun 2013 at 10:43

Hi Guys,

I am running an LSI 9260-8i Raid card, well in fact its an IBM M5014 but just re-branded from the LSI 9260, I have it set up and running a Raid-5 array with 4 x 3TB WD RED drives, all working fine but I have crappy write speeds which is down to it not having a BBU (Battery Backup Unit)

Soooo I just purchased a new BBU and after almost a week of faffing about I cant get the thing to work properly!

The LSI software in windows sees the BBU fine, health status is showing as OK but it shows as Degraded and needs attention (see below)

This stops the write policy going to 'Write Back' which is what I need running to get the fast write speeds but its not kicking in as it says the BBU is discharged (see below)

This controller has a learn feature which is one of the very few options I get with the BBU, when you run it it fully charges the battery no problem then it will sit there and fully drain it to see how long it lasts or whatever so it knows its able capacity etc, this all works fine and passes the learn feature but then when it starts charging itself back up it just stops on 40-something percent and then stops (see below)

I have let it do 2 sets of learn cycles and they both work fine but then after it finishes it will just not charge itself up again and sits there saying Degraded(needs Attention) but there is nothing I can click on to give it attention lol, what can I do, I have been thinking maybe the battery is duff?!

Heres the log, says battery charging is complete but it only gets to around 43% and stops charging the damned thing but yet when you start a learn cycle it will charge it to 100% before it drains it etc

Cheers for any help, bit annoyed right now! :mad:

coolamasta · 5 Jun 2013 at 16:08

Cheers fellas, I just updated it to latest firmware rebooted and then installed latest windows drivers and its no different, battery charge still wont kick in and says Needs Attention

I can't see anywhere to force an array rebuild, below shows the options I get for the array:

I'm sure I can get the battery replaced but want to bottom out whether its a configuration issue first, when on a learn cycle it deffo charges up to 100% fine but soon as the learn cycle finishes it charges up to something random like 43% and then stops

coolamasta · 6 Jun 2013 at 14:29

I 'think' its sorted *touches wood* and you will never guess what sorted it! - a different motherboard!! :confused:

I had to change out the motherboard in my NAS box anyway as it was an old P67 chipset 1155 board so last night I put a new board in with a H77 chipset and not only did everything post and run faster (P67 used to hang a bit before LSI firmware kicked in) but once I got into Windows and opened the LSI MegaRaid software the BBU was showing as Optimal and battery charge was a lot higher, write back is now on and speeds are up to what I expect WINNER!! :cool:

I've not forced a learn cycle on it yet as I cant decide whether I should or just let it do it itself which is every 28 days so it wont happen now until early July, hmmmm.... Should I or shouldn't I?

coolamasta · 3 Jul 2013 at 17:08

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO its gone and done the same thing again, Its just done its monthly automatic learn cycle and foookin disabled the BBU again saying 'Needs Attention' FFS :mad:

coolamasta · 5 Jul 2013 at 12:30

jake108 said:
Advice still stands, you may need to delete the array and rebuild it. LSI cards are not known for their reliability, they have some really bizarre bugs on occasion as you have just witnessed.

I recently had an LSI card I replaced with a HP P410, similar issue cache wouldn't enable - replaced battery, didn't work, flashed firmware with new battery, didn't work. Tried in different system with identical specs, didn't work at first BUT then after reflashing with the same firmware it worked, then I put it in the original system and it started mystically working. Decided it wasn't worth the risk so just put in the HP P410 instead.

It may be that you need to follow additional steps; if you don't mind calling India for LSI support if you have a contract or warranty that may be the first port of call. Alternatively rebuild the array from deleting it entirely and start again. Recommend you flash the array AFTER deleting and BEFORE recreating the array. Hope it helps.

Thanks bud, I think this is the only thing left I can try really, will have to get my backups up to date and just go for it I think, might even add in a 5th 3TB RED while im at it as im quickly running out of space on the current 8.2TB, with a 5th I should have around 10.8TB usable space

If it still messes up after that I will not be a happy chappy hahaha

coolamasta · 5 Jul 2013 at 12:31

rotor said:
It could be faulty? Have you thought of getting it replaced under warranty?

I suppose it could be, the card has no warranty as it was purchased from eBay but the battery should have as its only about a month old now...

coolamasta · 22 Aug 2013 at 15:20

FFS I am really getting annoyed with this now, I bought a few backup drives and copied all my data from the array onto it, I then deleted the array and restored factory defaults on the raid card using the BIOS GUI

I went through the wizard to create the new array, it sat there for 6 hours initialising the array, its now complete and guess what? Yeah fooooookin BBU still says Degraded, I just ran a manual learn cycle, it fully charged then drained itself and then said BBU failed with 1% charge in it then after 10 mins it then started charging for a bit and its now sat saying Degraded again just like it did before. :mad:

Really thought re-building the array from scratch again would have sorted this, bit gutted now to say the least

No idea what I can try next.... :mad: