I have a HP DL380 G7 which I use a make-shift SAN in my Lab setup. I decided I wanted to add some fast SSD storage, and opted to try out a Western Digital NVME SSD coupled with an NVME -> PCI-Express Card. I have no requirement to boot from the new SSD.
Initial results are not promising. The server boots (from existing storage) and the SSD shows up in Device and Disk Manager. I can "Initialize" the disk but every time I attempt to format it, Windows Blue Screens.
The Blue Screen is a highly generic NMI_HARDWARE_FAILURE message. However, the IML Log is more useful:
Uncorrectable PCI Express Error (Embedded device, Bus 0, Device 7, Function 0, Error status 0x00004000)
Initial investigation seems to imply that Device 7 is actually the onboard P400i RAID controller. I'm a little confused about the interaction here, as I thought a PCI-E card would be totally distinct from anything else and would just be handled in Windows the same way as, say, a USB Device would be.
EDIT: Actually, upon further inspection it looks like the error does actually change and maybe linked to which slot the card is in. I'll try and prove that point later on.
I have noticed in the BIOS that both cards share the same IRQ but I'm unable to change them independently. Additionally, I've tried every PCI slot on the motherboard to no avail.
All Firmware is at the latest levels, and I'm using Windows Server 2016 with the latest updates.
Is there any where else to go with this? Or do I just need to write it off as incompatible?
My next step is to try an offboard RAID controller, or maybe try booting into a Live CD without the P400i enabled but neither of these are really solutions as I don't have a properly compatible RAID card.
