Supermicro X12SPi-TF will not start with optical drive attached

General
1

I have a build using a Supermicro X12SPi-TF motherboard. The problem I’m running in to is that as soon as I connect one of my optical drives (LG Electronics WH16NS40) is connected the system will not start up.

It doesn’t seem to matter how I do the connection.

I’ve tried:

  1. Using a SFF 8643 Forward breakout to SATA cable.
  2. Connecting from one of the two SATA DOM SATA ports on the motherboard
  3. Installing an IBM M1015 (flashed to IT mode) card and connecting using a SFF 8087 forward breakout cable to SATA connection.

In any of those settings when I turn on the power supply the motherboard will get power as evidenced by the onboard LED flashing, but when I press the power button, the fans start to spin for 1 or 2 seconds then stop spinning and nothing else happens. The motherboard LED continues to flash. Disconnecting from the optical drive (but leaving cables otherwise attached to the card or motherboard will let the system start normally.

The optical drives have power (the LEDs on them light up) but making a connection to a SATA connector makes the startup fail.

I’ve checked the sSATA and SATA BIOS settings which are configured for AHCI.

Where you specify SATA connection type it is set to Hard Drive (you can also choose Solid State Drive) but not optical drive.

I am not trying to actually boot from an optical drive, only have one connected to the system to use once booted.

Boot mode is set to UEFI and not legacy.

Any ideas on why connecting an internal optical drives cause startup to fail? I’ve at a loss at this point.

Thank you for any help.

Kevin

2
  • Does it make a difference if there is a disc in the drive?
  • Motherboard BIOS up to date?
  • Optical drive firmware up to date?
  • Does boot order matter? Be sure the optical drive is after your system drive in the boot order
  • You could try a SATA port expander card. One example of many; https://www.amazon.com/Ziyituod-Controller-Expansion-Profile-Non-Raid/dp/B07SZDK6CZ/ref=sr_1_6. This would give you a different controller chip than the Intel C621A or the HBA. No idea if that would make a difference or worth the cost trying.

Are you sure it’s failing in POST and not failing loading the OS? I have a different, but slightly similar, problem where TrueNAS goes into a boot loop if I have a USB optical drive attached on boot.

1 Like
3

I appreciate the reply.

Having a disk in the drive does not matter.

The Motherboard BIOS and Optical driver firmware are up to date.

The optical drive option for booting is after the NVMe drive that boots the system.

I’m pretty sure it fails during POST. It never gets far enough to even display the Supermicro splash screen, let me access BIOS, etc. All three of these drive were working on a W10 system this is supposed to replace (but could not be updated to W11 because it laced a TPM header).

I’ll try the expander card. It’s worth a shot for $23.

Any other thoughts appreciated.

Kevin

4

Hi @kolepard,
What OS are you running? Did you make the change after OS install?

I remember back in the day, especially with Microsoft window systems, If you changed the mode to AHCI after the OS was installed, the system would hang because the needed drivers weren’t installed. The remedy was to disconnect the trouble drive, boot into old OS, configure drivers and then reboot, change bios settings back to AHCI.

5

Sorry, I don’t have much. I see more reports of people having problems with the drives dying randomly than with people having trouble booting. We’ll assume there’s not just a coincidence of it dying at the same time you switched systems.

You could give LG support a shot, but I’d have pretty low hopes.

I agree with @daemon1001 that I’d try to set the SATA mode to IDE instead of AHCI if there is a setting like that in the BIOS.

Have you logged into the IPMI during boot? Are there any messages there?

What is your boot drive configuration … is it RAID? One thing that gets mentioned is that maybe the BIOS gets confused and thinks the optical drive is part of a RAID.

Another thing that is mentioned, on the order of “have you tried turning it off and on again?” is a CMOS reset. Yeah, I know, also a long shot, but I think I have had once or twice where clearing CMOS has helped me get a reluctant system to boot.

If I was in your place, I’d probably be mulling Plan Bs in the back of my mind; Do I really need an internal optical drive? Do I really need Windows 11? Can I run Windows 11 in a VM (in eg Proxmox) with a vTPM? Can I do the workflow that requires the optical drive on another computer (eg, the old one, and transfer files over the network, or mount the drive over the network)? Can I get a cheap, used (perhaps DVD only) unit off of eBay from a different manufacturer for testing (eg ASUS BW-16D1HT, Pioneer BDR-209DBK) just to see if it’s something about the drives’ SATA implementation.

1 Like
6

@daemon1001

Thank you for taking the time to reply. This was a new build, and it is a dual boot system, Kubuntu 24.04 LTS and Windows 11.

The default in BIOS was/is AHCI so that was how it was set for installation of both operating systems.

When I power on with an optical drive attached, I never even get to the Supermicro splash screen, let along the BIOS.

I appreciate you taking the time to try and help me, though.

7

@DigitalGarden

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I agree. It’s hard to beleive all 3 drives died at the same time and in such a way as to all prevent booting.

You could give LG support a shot, but I’d have pretty low hopes.

I’ll try that and the CMOS reset, too.

I’ve never used IPMI, so I’ve not experience there. Would I get any information there, though? The system spins the fans for a couple seconds then stops, so I don’t think it’s running at all, other than having power. All case and CPU fans just stop.

The boot configuration is definitely not RAID. I boot from the NVMe disk attached to the on-board header.

What is your boot drive configuration … is it RAID? One thing that gets mentioned is that maybe the BIOS gets confused and thinks the optical drive is part of a RAID.

Oh, I am. I don’t have any external 5.25" enclosures but may have to get one. I did order a PCIE SATA card as you suggested so I’ll try that.

As for Windows 11, I wish I didn’t. I’m trying to move away from Windows to Linux but I’ve yet to find anything like VIdeoReDo for Linux that I could replace it with.

If changing BIOS settings to IDE, CMOS resets and the PCIE SATA card don’t work, then I’ll have to look at some of your other suggestion, though like IPMI I’ve never used Proxmox.

Thank you again for taking the time to help.

Kevin

8

A couple more ideas:

  1. You stated that you are using a forward breakout cable, so that means you are using the i-sata0 thru i-sata7 ports, not the SATA-DOM. I’m not entirely sure about the PCH chipset your board uses, but I suspect it might only support RAID mode (0,1,5,10). Also, Some chipsets don’t play well with devices from different SATA generations (because they expect RAID). for example mixing a SATA gen 1 optical drive and SATA gen 3 hard drives.

  2. Depending on the age of the optical drive, it might not be truly SATA. Many old LG drives had a SATA port, but still presented as IDE drives (they ran in IDE emulation mode)
    EDIT it looks like some of these optical drives were produced as early as 2013 and were SATA-I devices. They were still in production recently and those were SATA III.

some options as mentioned earlier:

If you need the drive to be internal, a sata PCI-e expansion card should work if you’ve got an available slot.

Or

If external is ok, try a cheap optical drive enclosure with USB connection.

1 Like
9

I’ve tried the SATA-DOM ports too, with the same results.

It uses the Intel PCH 621A. BIOS can set the ports to either AHCI or RAID, but I’ve checked multiple times (including switching them back and forth) and they are set to AHCI. That’s a good thought though.

The LG WH16NS40 drives are listed as having a SATA interface in their specs from LG. They don’t say there is a SATA<->IDE conversion, but I don’t know how to check beyond the documentation.

I do, and I have one ordered. That’ll be what I try next.

External is fine. Not as clean or compact, but if it works that’s all that really matters at this point.

Oh, and I tried a CMOS reset, too. Still no success.

Thank you again for your additional time and efforts.

Kevin

10

I installed a PCIe card with 4 SATA ports this morning, and still no luck. This makes no sense to me, but at this point I’m going to try an external enclosure.

Thanks again to those who replied and tried to help.

Kevin

11

That’s surprising, especially given the additional info @daemon1001 provided. Which specific card did you get? Presumably it has one of the Asmedia chips.

Are you using the drive for ingest, backup (MDISC?) or both? If you are going to have something external, why not get a new slimline drive? Is there something very special about that drive? Did you say you have three of them?

I can’t guarantee it would help, but I really would take a few minutes and try to get into the IPMI and just see if there are any messages and watch the system boot via the built in console instead of the external monitor. IPMI uses it’s own microcontroller, so it’s available even if the main system isn’t booting. This article has mostly screenshots from a fat client, but you can just access it from a web browser as explained later in the article;

Did you take a look at the Windows event logs just to be sure? From what I can recall, a system not POSTing has been an electrical issue for me; a header plugged in backwards, RAM not fully seated, etc. Getting stuck in POST seems very odd and reminiscent of 30 years ago tech.

12

@kolepard ,

  1. will your system boot to an OS without it? If so, which one is default ( I think you said you have a dual boot)?

  2. Any idea how old your optical drive is? There are many firmware versions available for that model if you wanted to flash it. Also, Do you have any other optical drives that you could pull from a working system or old laptop? If so, I’d swap them out to see if the problem is the drive vs the OS. I am also assuming that this is a true SATA optical drive and does NOT have any jumper settings (Cable Select, Slave, Master).

13

What are the specs of the old hardware (assuming you still have it and could fall back to it)? CPU, mobo, amount of RAM, other PCIe cards installed, etc.

14

I agree. I bought the one he linked to, above. It had good reviews.

I mostly use them to convert my physical media on to my server. I’m old fashioned and like to buy my media on physical disks (Blu-Ray, audio CDs etc) and then convert it for use on my server. I then store the physical media.

I do burn a small number of M-Discs for backup of a small amount of critical data.

I have 3 identical drives with the 1.02 firmware, which supports converting the UHD discs I buy.

I’ll read through your link and give it a try. My days off are ending, so it may be a while before I get to that. Thank you for the link.

Yes. I didn’t see anything that looked relevant.

I agree; I’ve seen that happen, too. What is weird, though, is that leaving the drives connected to power (but the SATA cables disconnected) lets the system boot normally. I haven’t tried booting with the SATA cable connected and the power disconnected, now that I think about it.

That hardware was recycled. It was an old ASUS motherboard, with an Intel i7-6700k CPU and 16 GB RAM. The motherboard was too old to have a TPM module or header, and the i7-6700k was not a supported CPU for W11. It worked fine for the better part of 10 years, and I would not have gotten rid of it except that support for W10 ends soon.

Yes. It was set to go to the GRUB boot menu, and then to Kubuntu unless I selected something different. During my attempts at trouble shooting, though, I messed it up so that it now boots directly to W11 unless I select the Boot Menu option from UEFI during startup. I’ll have to boot a Kubuntu ISO and go through the process of fixing that.

About 7 years. I have three of them. It’s hard to believe that all 3 failed simultaneously.

Mine are 1.02, the last version that works with UHD discs. They are true SATA as far as I can tell; they have no jumpers.

I’ll have to get in to the IPMI information and try an external enclosure. I’ll report back here when I do.

I really appreciate how helpful you both are trying to be.

Kevin

15

One other thought crossed my mind. Can you unplug all hard drives and even NVME OS drives and just leave the optical drive connected and try to boot? IF, the board will at least post, then it’s probably a driver config that got borked with the grub issue. If, it still doesn’t post, I’d lean towards the chipset not supporting the optical drive or at least that LG drive. If you have any type of recycler, goodwill, or charity center, you should be able to get any type of optical drive for under $5 (doesn’t have to support UHG). If you are in NC, I’ll send you one of mine. This would also help eliminate if it is the LG drive.

16

That is a good idea. I will try that.

I’ll look in to that.

That is very generous. I live in OR, so I don’t think it would be worth the shipping costs. I imagine I can scrounge up a non-LG optical drive around here somewhere.

I’m a bit bogged down back at work. I should be able to do some more testing Thursday with a little luck, and I’ll report back then.

I really appreciate you ongoing thoughts on this rather odd problem.

Kevin

17

Well, I tried booting with the optical drive attached and the NVMe boot drive out, and I got the same 1-2 seconds of fan spin, then nothing.

When I next have time, I’m going to try the drive in an external case.

I also had one occasion where I couldn’t get any startup because of a PSU issue, so I may try swapping the PSU and cables for different ones.

I’ll update when I get the chance, but I’m going to be bogged down at work for a while so it’ll probably a week or two until I have the chance to tear in to it again.

Thank you again.

Kevin

18

Hey Kevin,

Did you happen to get a chance to test the server booting? if you continue to have issues, please reach out to info@45homelab.com, and we can get a support ticket entered.

19

Not with an optical drive attached, no. I’m thinking it is likely a problem either with the power supply (which is a Corsiar 1200 W model that I bought thinking I might want the extra beefy supply for a GPU) or the cable connecting the drives to the PSU.

This really isn’t an HL15 problem, so I wouldn’t feel right about creating a support ticket. I do appreciate you making that offer, though.

I will again say big thank yous to @DigitalGarden and @daemon1001 for their help. When I get dug out from under work in a week or so, I’m going to try digging in to the IPMI stuff as well as the PSU, power cable stuff and the trial of using a drive in an external case.

Kevin

1 Like