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3,702 Views 2 Replies Last post: Jul 5, 2009 5:36 PM by VooDooNOFX RSS
VooDooNOFX Lurker
VooDooNOFX
2 posts since
Oct 30, 2008
Currently Being Moderated

Oct 30, 2008 2:36 PM

ESXi Whitebox on AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition and MSI KA780G

 

I can confirm that I successfully installed ESXi 3.5 (VMware-VMvisor-InstallerCD-3.5.0_Update_2-110271.i386.iso) on the following hardware:

 

 

AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition

MSI KA780G Motherboard

8GB Geil DDR2 800 RAM

Adaptec 3405 RAID Card installed in Pci-Express x16 slot

4x Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drives (Raid 5)

Intel Gigabit 1000GT NIC

 

 

I had to purchase the Adaptec 3405 as the onboard SATA/RAID was not found using any hacks or adding the id's to the oem files. Also, onboard NIC wasn't detected, so I installed the Intel NIC. esxi didn't seem to detect my cd-rom after I installed esxi, however I installed from a 512mb flash anyway. Didn't need the cdrom anyway.

 

 

System has been up for 2 days now, with fairly heavy load and been working fine.  I'm impressed with the phenom's performance, and haven't had a single PSOD!

 

 

On a side note, I got the following error just as it began installing esxi, but installation continued normally. The error message was "exception node (VSI_NODE_storage_scsi_lun_info) ; Status(bad000d)=Invalid name; Message= Unable to get Int".

 

 

Regards,

Steven

 

 

Tags: install, whitebox, 3.5i
jgl1975 Expert
jgl1975
294 posts since
Aug 11, 2007
Currently Being Moderated
1. Jan 9, 2009 8:48 AM in response to: VooDooNOFX
Re: ESXi Whitebox on AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition and MSI KA780G

 

Hello!

 

 

I'm busy building myself a new white box and I would like to know how the Adaptec 3405 worked.

 

 

Could you tell me how well it performs ?

 

 

Do you get the full speed of your hdds under ESXi ?

 

 

Have you got the Battery Module installed ?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

VooDooNOFX Lurker
VooDooNOFX
2 posts since
Oct 30, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
2. Jul 5, 2009 5:36 PM in response to: jgl1975
Re: ESXi Whitebox on AMD Phenom 9950 Black Edition and MSI KA780G

 

Yes, I was able to achieve full IO speeds using the 3405 on my esxi 3.5 U3 servers. I've now used this card, as well as the 3805 adaptec raid cards in a variety of servers with great success.

 

 

No, I didn't purchase the battery module. To compensate, I had to disable write caching. Someday we'll buy the modules, and make it a little more reliable. So far my RAID 10 is functioning perfectly, and is VERY fast.

 

 

My only compaint about the card is the heat generated by its passively cooled cpu block. I always make sure to point an 80mm or larger fan at it to keep it within operating temps.

 

 

Regards,

Steven

 

 

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