I'm looking to use the DL180's in my test lab. Have a separate NIC and P400. For the 64 bit issue, did you turn on the Intel Virtualization Technology on for the processors in the BIOS? I used to have problems with the DL380's using 64 bit until we enabled VT on the CPUs.

I knew if I dug hard enough, I might find something -- yeah, I know you all don't care. But the noapic did not work for me, neither did "noapic" including the quotes. Finally, I ran across a solution to the problem where I had to enter "esx noapic" without the quotes. That did the trick, I am now running ESX on my non-supported HP DL320 G5p server... did not attempt to play with the built-in RAID cuz it didn't not see the drive at all when I first tried it. I gave up on that real fast.

Now, since that worked, and since it is my birthday -- I am leaving early to try the "fix" I found for my car on the internet last night!! With all this computerized stuff, what would we ever do without Google and User Communities. BTW, whatever happened to CompuServe? That is what I cut my computer teeth on while learing to install Novell 2.2.

Dear quicknetsv;

I have the same problem installing ESXi 3.5 on HP Proliant DL320G5 SmartArrayE200 controler with 2xSATA drives. If you're so kind, and please let me know, where and how can I add/edit ESXi configuration (since ESXi doesn't have service console) with this "esx noapic"?

Thank you in advance,Regards,Miha

So, the conclusion is that someone has ESXi 3.5 U2 running on a DL180 G5??

We have been having major issues with this. We have two identical DL180 G5's. We already had added a supported Intel NIC and replaced the E200 controller (though it appears that controller is on the list now). We have gotten ESXi installed (which some people seem to be having issues with; actually, it never auto reboots at the end of installation, but it comes up fine after manually powering off/on the machine). We have even had some VM's running for a short time, but then all of a sudden we get the Purple screen of death with a message about CPU 0 (or some other number) not responding. We have re-installed 10+ times on 2 different identically configured machines.

Anyone have ESXi running on a DL180 G5?? Anyone seen the CPU not responding message??

Hi Guys,
Just wanted to let you know that I had similar problem getting ESXi to work with DL180 even though I had followed the suggestions of making sure BIOS was up-to-date, add-on card was used for storage (HP Smart Array P400) and network card, and using a USB keyboard and mouse rather than the PS2 version.

However, after a number of different combinations of raid card and add-on card and disabling this and that I still could get the ESXi to work either from a USB stick, or when installed on the local drives, both old and new version (at the timing of writing this the latest version is 130755). It would basically stay alive for around 1-2 minutes and then PSOD with Exception 14 errors. I even tried ram changes, upgrades and individual module inserted, and trying to virtual copy the USB stick from a perfectly working ML350 G5 with the latest ESXi build. At one point I thought of replacing the single 2.5Ghz Quad Core CPU for 1 or 2x Dual/Quad core 2Ghz to see if that worked.

It was then that I asked TechFan for a hand, as his last post he had mentioned that he managed to get a couple of Dl180 G5's working for the last several months. After a number of emails being sent back and forth he suggested ditching the downloadable ESXi + HP Insight Support, and just using the standard ESXi download, and IT WORKED. Simple really, and i guess it made sense, as the HP tools where probably not designed for the DL180 G5 and as soon as ESXi booted and tried to run the HP Tools, it crashed and gave me PSOD.

I have now been using it for a few days straight and not a single crash. I have installed new VMs, migrated VMs, backed up VMs and made a heap of configurations changes + assigned it to Virtual Center and everything is ticking along nicely.

So for all of you out there wanting to use a DL180 G5, for whatever reason, and mine was for home use to get to know VMware slightly better (as it is a great little cheap server that can easily take up to 12x Hard Disk) make sure you do the following and you should be fine:

1- Disable on board SATA as it does not work well with it on. If you want to use a CD/DVD-Rom then make sure to connect it to the first port and not the second and set the port to non-raid.
- No need to disable onboard Lan as it seems to work fine
2- Download and install whatever version of ESXI (and i think ESX as well) you want but make sure not to use the ones with HP Tools, as for the time being (13-02-2009) that causes the server to crash.
3- Use the USB keyboard and mouse and not the PS2 version, as this also has the habit of making it slightly less stable and prone to crashes.

And you should be fine.

Good Luck and thank you TechFan