BananaPi BPI-R3 and m.2-to-SATA convertor

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R3/R3 Mini(MT7986)
1

Hi, I have Banana Pi BPI-R3 v.1.1 and I am trying to use it with m.2-to-sata converer board below:

M.2 To SATA 3.0 Riser Card M2 M-KEY PCI-E Expansion Card 5/6 Port SATA3.0 Converter for NVME NGFF To SATA SSD Adapter Card 6Gbps https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006160789183.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.15.531a1802r4Aiuy Chip ASM1166(maybe)

To do so I am trying to compile OpenWRT (branch v24.10.0), although I way far from an expert in the area. I’ve tried also branch v23.05.0, but I was getting some kernel incompatibility errors when I was loading kmod-(s)ata-ahci.

Here is my config file ( config (16.2 KB) ). I created it by combining <OpenWRT (branch v24.10.0)>/target/linux/mediatek/filogic/config-6.6 and diffconfig_mt7986 from this thread (BPi-R3 + OpenWRT: what's the best way to use the rest of my space on my SD card? - #11 by 0xKruzr)

The compilation steps I follow ([OpenWrt Wiki] Build system usage):

cd <path>/openwrt
git checkout v24.10.0
./scripts/feeds update -a
./scripts/feeds install -a
#copy my .config file to <path>/openwrt
make menuconfig
make -j$(nproc) kernel_menuconfig
make -j$(nproc) defconfig download clean world

When Banana Pi BPI-R3 boots with the compiled image, I need to provide power to the sata drives via > 12V/5V XH2.54 connector. To do so I have to set GPIO8, like so:

> cat /sys/class/gpio/gpiochip*/base | head -n1
512
#and sum the base to your GPIO: 512 + 8 = 520
echo "520" > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio229/direction
echo "1" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio229/value

I can hear the disk starts rotating now.

But no block device is detected by the system: fdisk -l shows nothing dmesg shows nothing

The most interesting: lspci shows nothing.

Once after installing any modules and packages I came across in discussions in internet, I was able to see /dev/sda. But, again, it was not detected by fdisk and lspci still showed nothing.

Can anyone give me a hand with this? Thank you.

2

You would need to include the driver for the asm1166 somehow. I donot use openwrt, so cannot help with the specifics…

Best guess: install kmod-ata-ahci

3

For the pin-header i added an overlay recently to upstream linux,you have to add it in your fit/config.

This is imho already part of openwrt as daniel afair took an older version of my patch. Not sure how they handle it there to get it loaded

4

frank-w, Eric W - thank you for your resonances.

Today I am with the BPI-R3 again. I abandoned for now the idea to build OpenWRT myself. Now I installed the official image: https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r3-sdcard.img.gz.

I installed kmod-ata-ahci, as suggested. This is the entire list list of packages I have at the moment package_list.txt (2.6 KB)).

Unfortunately these don’t help - the m2-sata convertor board still does not work. On boot its LEDs flash briefly and that’s the only sign of life I get.

lspci still shows nothing.

Here is my lsmod output: lsmod (3.9 KB)

What I see in dmesg is the following (dmesg (25.9 KB) ):

root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg | grep -e pci -e sda
[    0.054084] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: host bridge /soc/pcie@11280000 ranges:
[    0.054104] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: Parsing ranges property...
[    0.054114] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie:      MEM 0x0020000000..0x002fffffff -> 0x0020000000
[    0.054222] /soc/pcie@11280000: Failed to get clk index: 0 ret: -517
[    0.054231] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: failed to get clocks
[    5.178127] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: host bridge /soc/pcie@11280000 ranges:
[    5.185463] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: Parsing ranges property...
[    5.191716] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie:      MEM 0x0020000000..0x002fffffff -> 0x0020000000
[    5.592134] mtk-pcie-gen3 11280000.pcie: PCIe link down, current LTSSM state: detect.quiet (0x1)
[    5.600940] mtk-pcie-gen3: probe of 11280000.pcie failed with error -110
[   16.492034] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Media removed, stopped polling
[   16.497947] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk

It seems the PCIe is not working. But I don’t know how to prove this, as I don’t have nvme device around.

Any other advices?

Thank you.

5

Try one of mine or Frank’s images. See if lspci shows someting…

6

Hi,

After last experiments, I think the issue is not in the software(OpenWRT version) but in the hardware. I think I am using incompatible m.2-to-sata convertor.

Today I found one m.2-to-ethernet card like this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005176445161.html. Once plugged dmesg seems to recognize it ( pcie_to_ethernet_log (15.7 KB) ). But I forgot to check if lspci shows something.

I will have to find another suitable m.2-to-sata convertor. Once I found such I will write about the result.

Thank you for your time and support.

7

Here is a report of another sata card recognized: