MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Yan Seiner]

I have a 6 slot server case with a backplane.  AFAICT the backplane is 
passive and there are SATA cables that lead from the backplane to the mobo.

The problem is that the disk activity LEDs for the slots don't flash at 
all.  The mobo is an ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe, which has the MCP55 controller.

The drive activity LED which plugs into the mobo works just fine; the 
individual LEDs for each of the drives don't flash - they just stay on.  
Is there something I can enable to make them work?  Or is the backplane 
broken?

--Yan

Re: MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Dan Noé]

On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:08:39 -0800
Yan Seiner <yan@seiner.com> wrote:

> I have a 6 slot server case with a backplane.  AFAICT the backplane
> is passive and there are SATA cables that lead from the backplane to
> the mobo.
> 
> The problem is that the disk activity LEDs for the slots don't flash
> at all.  The mobo is an ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe, which has the MCP55
> controller.
> 
> The drive activity LED which plugs into the mobo works just fine; the 
> individual LEDs for each of the drives don't flash - they just stay
> on. Is there something I can enable to make them work?  Or is the
> backplane broken?

I have a Tyan Transport GT20 and the individual drive bay LEDs don't
work at all.  Annoying, but I'm not physically near the system that
much.  If I recall correctly, on the GT20 the backplane didn't have the
capability to light the LEDs (although then I don't understand wtf
there are LEDs there... perhaps Windows has some way of lighting them).

Cheers,
Dan

-- 
                    /--------------- - -  -  -   -   -
                   |  Dan Noé
                   |  http://isomerica.net/~dpn/

Re: MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Andrew Lyon]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 5:05 PM, Dan Noé <dpn@isomerica.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:08:39 -0800
> Yan Seiner <yan@seiner.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a 6 slot server case with a backplane.  AFAICT the backplane
>> is passive and there are SATA cables that lead from the backplane to
>> the mobo.
>>
>> The problem is that the disk activity LEDs for the slots don't flash
>> at all.  The mobo is an ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe, which has the MCP55
>> controller.
>>
>> The drive activity LED which plugs into the mobo works just fine; the
>> individual LEDs for each of the drives don't flash - they just stay
>> on. Is there something I can enable to make them work?  Or is the
>> backplane broken?
>
> I have a Tyan Transport GT20 and the individual drive bay LEDs don't
> work at all.  Annoying, but I'm not physically near the system that
> much.  If I recall correctly, on the GT20 the backplane didn't have the
> capability to light the LEDs (although then I don't understand wtf
> there are LEDs there... perhaps Windows has some way of lighting them).
>
> Cheers,
> Dan

I have a similar problem with a supermicro system with sc743tq-865-sq
chassis + x7dwa-n motherboard, the chassis has a 8 drive hot swap
backplane but the motherboard only has 6 ports, the 6 drives that are
connected to the m/b have working led's but the 2 remaining drives
only flash when the drives spin up, the activity and status lights
remain off the rest of the time.

I've never figured out how the led's are driven, the backplane does
have two gpio ports which could be connected to gpio on the
motherboard, but I have never used them and it seems to work ok as it
is.

Andy
>
> --
>                    /--------------- - -  -  -   -   -
>                   |  Dan Noé
>                   |  http://isomerica.net/~dpn/
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Re: MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Harri Olin]

Andrew Lyon wrote:
> I have a similar problem with a supermicro system with sc743tq-865-sq
> chassis + x7dwa-n motherboard, the chassis has a 8 drive hot swap
> backplane but the motherboard only has 6 ports, the 6 drives that are
> connected to the m/b have working led's but the 2 remaining drives
> only flash when the drives spin up, the activity and status lights
> remain off the rest of the time.
>   

Drive activity LED's light up using SATA power connector pin 11. Some 
hard drives support this, others don't.

I don't have any hard information of which drives support and which 
don't but I seem to recall that some WD non-raid-edition drives didn't.

Do you have different drives on the remaining 2 slots?

> I've never figured out how the led's are driven, the backplane does
> have two gpio ports which could be connected to gpio on the
> motherboard, but I have never used them and it seems to work ok as it
> is.
>   

On Supermicro TQ backplanes there is bunch of SGPIO connectors, one for 
4 drives. They are connected to AMI MG9072 chip and are used for 
blinking red error LED's. The integrated (Intel matrix) RAID on some 
Supermicro motherboards should support this, but I have never tested it. 
Also at least some Areca SAS and SATA controllers support it. There is 
also i2c connector but that works only with some Promise contollers. 
Note also that the backplane has to be jumpered correctly for it to work.

-- 
Harri.

Re: MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Robert Hancock]

Yan Seiner wrote:
> I have a 6 slot server case with a backplane.  AFAICT the backplane is 
> passive and there are SATA cables that lead from the backplane to the mobo.
> 
> The problem is that the disk activity LEDs for the slots don't flash at 
> all.  The mobo is an ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe, which has the MCP55 controller.
> 
> The drive activity LED which plugs into the mobo works just fine; the 
> individual LEDs for each of the drives don't flash - they just stay on.  
> Is there something I can enable to make them work?  Or is the backplane 
> broken?

The backplane may be expecting the host to control the LEDs. You'd have 
to check with the manufacturer to be sure. As for how it would do this, 
there's such a thing as enclosure management support in SATA, but the 
sata_nv driver doesn't support it. If there is a way to use it on that 
controller, only NVidia would know, since they've provided no 
documentation for their pre-AHCI controllers. Some AHCI controllers do 
have support for this..

Re: MCP55 disk activity LEDs don't flash

[Yan Seiner]

Robert Hancock wrote:
>
> The backplane may be expecting the host to control the LEDs. You'd 
> have to check with the manufacturer to be sure. As for how it would do 
> this, there's such a thing as enclosure management support in SATA, 
> but the sata_nv driver doesn't support it. If there is a way to use it 
> on that controller, only NVidia would know, since they've provided no 
> documentation for their pre-AHCI controllers. Some AHCI controllers do 
> have support for this.. 

This is a Norco DS-600s, a really nice rackmount case which has been 
discontinued by Norco...  Unfortunately Norco doesn't have any sort of 
enduser support and that case was mostly sold as a security DVR 
enclosure to OEMs so I have not been able to find anything on it.

Unless there's some easy way to figure out what the backplane is doing 
I'll just put up with it.  It's rock solid but it's kind of annoying to 
have all those drives and no blinkie-lights.  :-)

--Yan