ESXi 5.1U1 does not boot when connected to LAN

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pdcrom

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Oct 26, 2013
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Hi,

I have build a home server with the following hardware:

- Supermicro X10SLL-F
- Intel Xeon E3-1230v3
- 32 GB RAM
- Logilink firewire PCIe card
- Intel PRO/1000 PT dual port PCIe NIC
- 4GB USB stick to boot ESXI

The problem is that ESXi 5.1 will not boot when the machine is connected to the home LAN on any of the 4 available NICs!

The ESXi boot process starts and it will stop right after loading "s.v00" with a fatal error 33 (inconsistent data). If the network cable is not connected, this never happens and ESXi 5.1 boots like it should. The same happens when running the ESXi 5.1U1 installer (ISO downloaded from the VMware site)

I have tried different USB sticks, even installed ESXi on a harddrive, but always with the same result.

ESXi 5.5 does not give those errors, but this version is not usable for me, because the PCIe passthrough seems broken. VMs will not boot when the PCIe card is passed.

My workaround for now is that I unplug the network cable during the boot process and insert it once the boot process loaded all the files and the yellow screen appears. Always works, but would be nice to restart the server in a lights out environment without this hassle.

Paul.
 
Hey Paul,

I assume the bios is updated is that correct? and just curious is it the Firewire card that you are passing through that creates the issue with 5.5?

Just curious when u say they dont boot what exactly happens i am curious... Did you collect Host logs when this happened?

Have you tried booting the host without any of the PCI-E cards installed to see if one of them is causing the issue with the NIC port being plugged in boot issue? basically make it barebones see if the issue still exists...
 
Hi,

It looks like the BIOS is up-to-date, it says version 1.1a and looking at the supermicro website this is the latest version from 20-8-2013.

Yes, I want to passthrough the firewire card, because I have two DVB tuners that have a firewire connection. In ESXi 5.1 when selecting the PCI device for passthrough, it also gives a message that a dependant device, the PCI controller needs to be passed as well and gets checked also. This does not happen in 5.5.

In ESXi 5.5 a VM with the firewire card as a pass through device starts to boot, but then goes black in the console and hangs forever.

I can boot the server again with ESXi 5.5 and collect some logs, which ones would be helpfull? I can SSH into the server to get them.

No I did not remove the cards yet to test the ESXi 5.1 boot issue.

Paul
 
I would just want to know more if the Firewire card is the cause of the issues personally... Running a barebones machine just lets us know if its the addons or not...

I didnt know about the console hang... i assume the OS still functions and u can use the C# client to still access the system or am i incorrect about that?

I would say a server bundle would be the best logs to see if something pops out!

Also can u take a pic of how you Passthrough the card so i can see how you are handling that to ensure there might be some other issue...

Also have you tried using different PCIe busses to see if the problem could be PCI bridge issue..

There are a couple of revs of your board 1 shows 2 PCIe and the other shows 3
 
Some more details about the firewire pass-through first:

I have put some pictures and log-files from /var/log/vmware here

I included a picture of the board, you see 3 PCIe slots (A/B/C).

The dual port NIC is installed in slot C
The firewire card is installed in slot A (the PCI x16 slot)
One port of the the dual port NIC is connected to my home LAN

This is what I did:

for ESXi 5.5 (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.5.0-1331820.x86_64.iso):

- installed fresh copy on USB stick- reboot
- connected to server with VMware vSphere Client
- selected pass-through for firewire card (see picture) (8:45 in log)
- reboot
- added an existing Windows 2008 Server R2 VM
- started the VM and checked if it boots into the logon screen (OK)
- shutdown the VM and passed the PCI device (see picture)
- started the VM - it starts but then nothing happens - VM console screen turns black

I started digging around in the esxi configuration some more by login into the server with ssh:
- executed: "esxcli hardware pci list" gives differences for ESXi 5.1 vs 5.5, see below
- the 5.1 file is from the same machine but now running ESXi 5.1 with working firewire pass-through
- comparing them side by side show that there are differences


ESXi 5.1 PCI Express x16 Controller:

Address: 000:000:01.0
Segment: 0x0000
Bus: 0x00
Slot: 0x01
Function: 0x00
VMkernel Name: PCIe RP[00:00:01.0]
Vendor Name: Intel Corporation
Device Name: Haswell PCI Express x16 Controller
Configured Owner: Unknown
Current Owner: VMkernel
Vendor ID: 0x8086
Device ID: 0x0c01
SubVendor ID: 0x0000
SubDevice ID: 0x0000
Device Class: 0x0604
Device Class Name: PCI bridge
Programming Interface: 0x00
Revision ID: 0x06
Interrupt Line: 0x0b
IRQ: 11
Interrupt Vector: 0x98
PCI Pin: 0x00
Spawned Bus: 0x01
Flags: 0x0203
Module ID: -1
Module Name: None
Chassis: 0
Physical Slot: 0
Slot Description:
Passthru Capable: false
Parent Device:
Dependent Device:
Reset Method: None
FPT Sharable: false

=>ESXi 5.5 differences
Interrupt Vector: 0x2d
PCI Pin: 0xa8
Flags: 0x0203
Module ID: 0
Module Name: vmkernel

ESXi 5.1 VT6315 Series Firewire Controller:

Address: 000:001:00.0
Segment: 0x0000
Bus: 0x01
Slot: 0x00
Function: 0x00
VMkernel Name:
Vendor Name: VIA Technologies, Inc.
Device Name: VT6315 Series Firewire Controller
Configured Owner: VM Passthru
Current Owner: VM Passthru
Vendor ID: 0x1106
Device ID: 0x3403
SubVendor ID: 0x1106
SubDevice ID: 0x3403
Device Class: 0x0c00
Device Class Name: FireWire (IEEE 1394)
Programming Interface: 0x10
Revision ID: 0x01
Interrupt Line: 0x0b
IRQ: 11
Interrupt Vector: 0x98
PCI Pin: 0x3d
Spawned Bus: 0x00
Flags: 0x0401
Module ID: -1
Module Name: None
Chassis: 0
Physical Slot: 16
Slot Description:
Passthru Capable: true
Parent Device: PCI 0:0:1:0
Dependent Device: PCI 0:0:1:0
Reset Method: Link reset
FPT Sharable: true

=>ESXi 5.5 differences

Interrupt Vector: 0x2d
PCI Pin: 0xa0
Flags: 0x0401
Module ID: 17
Module Name: pciPassthru
Slot Description: Chassis slot 10.00
Dependent Device: PCI 0:1:0:0
 
I fixed the ESXi 5.1 boot issues I was experiencing. I remembered that I disabled the LAN PXE boot for all the NICs in the BIOS before. This is something the ESXi 5.1 bootloader cannot cope with, but the ESXi 5.5 loader can.

By resetting the BIOS to the standard optimized settings the problem was gone. I can now boot the machine with all network cables attached without any errors.

Still would like to find out why ESXi 5.5 does not like passing through my firewire card ;)
 
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