I installed an Adaptec 2405 RAID card in my T110 and it hangs up the boot process. I've tried different slots, I've tried disabling everything I can that might be competing for resources, and I need some help. I've contacted Adaptec support but haven't heard back from them. Has anyone else run into this issue? I've read on other forums that Dells are notorious for being incompatible with non-Dell RAID cards. I would consider installing a PERC 6/ir but I believe that it is incompatible with VMWare, something I plan to install on top of the hardware once I get an array configured.
Thanks in advance for any help.

I am having the exact same problem. I got the T110 for a test server for ESXI 4.0 and it works well with a SATA disk on the internal controller. I know the Adaptec 2405 RAID card works with ESXI and I've tested it in another machine.

HOWEVER -- splunge is exactly right -- installing the 2405 does cause the T110 to hang during BIOS POST.

Things I've tried:

1. all three of the slots the 2405 can fit into
2. disabling the T110's onboard SATA controller and trying to get the 2405 to come up

What seems to be happening, based on what I'm seeing on the front panel of the T110, is that when the 2405 is plugged, the T110 recognizes that there are more disks connected to it -- it shows "2" "3" "4" and so forth.

The BIOS POST hangs just when the internal SATA controller is trying to initialize, even when the internal SATA controller has been disabled in BIOS and the internal SATA disk is disconnected.

I had the same issue.

I found the disabling the card bios lets the machine boot and i can still see the array.

The card appears to be hanging esxi and the raid array is constantly being degraded (raid 10)

grrrr.

I should mention that this is NOT in a dell server though.. its in a whitebox.. came across this post while searching for people with similar issues.

"I installed an Adaptec 2405 RAID card in my T110 and it hangs up the boot process. I've tried different slots, I've tried disabling everything I can that might be competing for resources, and I need some help. I've contacted Adaptec support but haven't heard back from them. Has anyone else run into this issue? I've read on other forums that Dells are notorious for being incompatible with non-Dell RAID cards. I would consider installing a PERC 6/ir but I believe that it is incompatible with VMWare, something I plan to install on top of the hardware once I get an array configured.
Thanks in advance for any help."

I have facing the same issue which is annoying. In fact I have two different Adaptec RAID, 4805SAS and 5805. And they both failed. Exactly the same issue as described. Anyone found out the work around?

Same problem for me with a SuperMicro AOC-USASLP-S8iR which is featuring an Intel IOP348 with an ADAPTEC bios.
Basically this card is a S5805 with 256MB RAM.

System starts -> bios post arrives at the point where the Option ROM of the RAID SAS card should be initialized and it stalls.
Whatever i do : wait, reset, etc ... nothing helps.
I tried to disable all the hardware Option ROM like SATA RAID, LAN PXE, nothing helps too ...

I contacted SuperMicro technical support (which is great by the way !!!) and the guy who helped me said that the problem occurs when there is no sufficient free option rom memory to load the Card BIOS.

I then contacted Dell to tell them that the T110 BIOS needs some update, especially in the option roms tuning.
Of course, you know what was the answer ... the card isn't manufacturing from us, then, by the way, we are unable to give you support about it, bla bla bla ...

WHAT THE F*CK !?!? it is a poor raid sas card !!! nothing else !!! i'm quite sure Dell is restraining server bios to force people to buy bigger ones.
What is affirming i said is the fact that when you take a look at the "raid sas controllers" compatibility list with servers, the T110 is compatible with nothing ... WHY ? IT IS JUST A SERVER WITH A BIOS LIKE THE OTHERS !!!
BIOSes never changed of capacity nor the memory space reserved to it to load some Options ROMs.
I have a TYAN motherboard on which i was able to plug 2x RAID SCSI U320 card from LSI LOGIC (one megaraid SCSI 320-E and one megaraid 320-2e) + 2x RAID SAS (one LSI SAS3442e-R and the SuperMicro AOC-USASLP-S8iR//quite an Adaptec S5805) ... so ... WTF ?!?! i'm sure, they are restraining the BIOSes for avoiding people like us of using cheap and performing configurations.

Hope that helps !