I recently bought a LSI 9223-8i card for use in my Unraid server. When I installed it, the system began to boot loop: it would power on, but no video init, then power off and retry.

The problem was that the card and my motherboard were slightly incompatible surrounding the SMBus. There’s good detail about the problem here.

The solution is to block pins B5 (SMCLK, SMBus clock) an B6 (SMDAT, SMBus data) from connecting. That prevents SMBus from interrupting the boot of the system. I used simple electrical tape. The B5 & B6 pins are on the main side of the card, usually downard facing. Node that this is only on one side.

LSI Card with electrical tape blocking pins B5 and B6

Notice four unblocked pins, followed by 2 blocked pins. The tape doesn’t need to go up further than the gold contacts.

LSI Card with electrical tape blocking pins B5 and B6, wider view

Here is a wider view of the blocked pins.

LSI Card rear view with electrical tape wrapping around the bottom, but not blocking pins on the reverse side

Here is the other side, note the tape wrapped around the bottom of the card, but not blocking the pin contact.

LSI Card

For reference, here is the board name/assembly/revision information for my card.