I've worked a fair amount with LSI SAS chipsets over the last few years - some notes:
I don't have a Fuel so I can't do any tests with the card in an SGI.
1. The 1068 A0 rev is indeed a prototype chip, can't run new versions of firmware. I would not suggest buying any cards without knowing it had an A3 rev or greater 1064/1068 chipset, the previous revs were protos and were never released to the public.
2. Most of the SAS3041X-R boards I've seen have the A3 rev chip on them. (These are all low profile cards and come with a low profile bracket or full height bracket.
3. There was an issue with SATA dvd drives that I believe was fixed in the newest versions of the firmware for the 1064/1068 A3 and 1064e/1068e (pci express versions of the same chip) B2 & B3. No idea if this would fix the problem in IRIX though.
4. There should be no problems using the firmware posted on the LSI website for the Sun & HP OEM versions of the cards as long as you pick the correct chipset type, you can flash in a PC booted into DOS with the files on the LSI website. These flash updates also update the fcode for using the cards in a Sun SPARC system.
I don't have a Fuel so I can't do any tests with the card in an SGI.
1. The 1068 A0 rev is indeed a prototype chip, can't run new versions of firmware. I would not suggest buying any cards without knowing it had an A3 rev or greater 1064/1068 chipset, the previous revs were protos and were never released to the public.
2. Most of the SAS3041X-R boards I've seen have the A3 rev chip on them. (These are all low profile cards and come with a low profile bracket or full height bracket.
3. There was an issue with SATA dvd drives that I believe was fixed in the newest versions of the firmware for the 1064/1068 A3 and 1064e/1068e (pci express versions of the same chip) B2 & B3. No idea if this would fix the problem in IRIX though.
4. There should be no problems using the firmware posted on the LSI website for the Sun & HP OEM versions of the cards as long as you pick the correct chipset type, you can flash in a PC booted into DOS with the files on the LSI website. These flash updates also update the fcode for using the cards in a Sun SPARC system.