T7910 NVMe does not boot when in any PCIe slot

Question

I have tried a x4 and a x16 Dell interposer card (PCIe to SSD M.2 Interposer card (2 SSD) = Dell sales SKU 400-AKSO, Dell part number NTRCY) and neither will allow the tower to post while it is installed. If I pull the card out after waiting for the tower to post it will boot, but as long as the card is installed it will not post.

Tower boots fine on Mechanical HDD. Both PCIe cards tried in multiple slots. The only thing I can see is that a LED blinks consistently in groups of 6 flashes and then pauses briefly to restart the group of 6 flashes while the PCIe NVMe card is installed. The LED is labeled (LSI_HB_LED) on the motherboard. As soon as I remove the card the light starts flashing consistently.

If I disable the raid controller in the BIOS it stops the PC from recognizing my HDD, and says it cannot detect any drives (NVMe installed or not). I tried pulling the hard drives out and booting with just the NVMe and still no luck. This was advice from this thread --> https://www.dell.com/community/Precision-Fixed-Workstations/nvme-boot-on-T7910-works-fine-but-now-other-disks-not-recognized/m-p/7765722#M5750

DP/N: PGCG3 A01

Dual Xeon e5-2603 v4

64 gb RAM across 8 DIMMs (4/CPU)

BIOS revision A34

I have tried with a FirePro MXRT-7500 and a Nvidia Quadro K620.

Any help would be appreciated.

yahomeboitucks · Accepted Answer

I found that the issue was that my M.2 was not NVMe but a SATA drive. I have had the drive for so long I forgot that there was even SATA drives in M.2 form. Thank you both for the help.

mazzinia_ · Answer

Hello,

https://dokumen.tips/documents/lsi-sas-error-codes.html

At page 7 there are the instructions on how to write down the HB light codes and their meaning.

You get the issue even if the card has no nvme installed ?

mazzinia_ · Answer

Ok, but I was wondering if you tried with the card without having any nvme drive installed on it. What I mean is, have you tested the nvme drive elsewhere , to rule out it being defective ?

yahomeboitucks · Answer

The PC will post and boot windows 10 and 11 as long as I dont have the PCie NVMe card installed. As soon as I put the NVMe card into a PCIe slot, the PC gets stuck in a loop trying to post to the dell splash logo.

I will look into the light codes this afternoon thank you for the link.

yahomeboitucks · Answer

Having just the pcie card with no NVMe installed the PC still will not boot.

I looked at the link for the diagnostic codes you sent, but I do not quite understand how to translate the flashes into the 0x00000000 code they are looking for.

When I turn the tower on it blinks steady 9 flashes then has a long pause. These 9 flashes are what that manual refers to as long flashes I believe.

After the 9 flashes and the pause it keeps repeating 6 long flashes and 1 short flash then loops the 6 long and 1 short flash until I either pull the NVMe PCIe card out or I turn the PC off.

mazzinia_ · Answer

The card by itself should be sort of passive. Have you tried the card elsewhere ?

mazzinia_ · Answer

I don't think so, for this kind of issue

sam55todd · Answer

Have you tried to disconnecting and unplugging everything else (e.g. leaving only single RAM stick {if using single CPU}, getting out the rest of PCIe cards {incl. GPU if your MB supports onboard, but T7810 doesn't, so try to use most reliable and simplest GPU instead}, SATA, COM, all USB except for keyboard, etc. if any) with and without this suspiciously problematic PCIe module?

yahomeboitucks · Answer

I will try using them in my desktop today. Are there any BIOS settings that I should look for regarding this issue?

yahomeboitucks · Answer

I have not tried those ideas, but I will. It seems like it is specifically the PCIe cards though. The PC will post and boot totally fine on the old SAS and the new SATA HDDs I have.

If I cannot figure it out today I will be scrapping the NVMe idea and just going with 2.5" SSDs.

mazzinia_ · Answer

All is well what ends well, as they say

Precision Fixed Workstations

T7910 NVMe does not boot when in any PCIe slot

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