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americhanac
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nForce chipset 4 on ESX machine

Hi all,

Straight to business Smiley Wink The board in question is GA-MCP61PM-S2 and 3Com's NIC 3c905 series.

I have two specific problems with ESX 3.5 installation. I install it with what looks like a supported card during the installation - 3Com's 3c90x module loads and NIC is brought up as vmnic1 (yet not as eth0). eth0 is quite amusing as well though - and that is my second problem noted below.

After the installation the adapter shows state "Down "for ESX but in ifconfig it shows as up yet no LAN communication can be made.

This is kinda strange and me not being an expert on *UX systems is not helping either. Is there a way to verify that I need another module maybe or the problem lies elsewhere? Please help in this matter even if it is some ultra-basic command where I can verify exact module needed Smiley Happy

Second issue is this:

I install ESX, assign IP present on my DHCP network, vmnic1 is up, vswif0 is up with MAC address bind to vmnic1 (if I understand the architecture of ESX correctly) - 3Com that is not working.

I have nForce chipset with SATA disk and I followed procedures of modifying pciid - that made my system bootable.

I have read numerous times during my search that this Onboard LAN is not supported but this is not true. lspci lists controler as supported when comparing with pciid xml file.

When I have 3Com present AND write ifup eth0 it brings the Onboard card up! I enter dhclient (previously created reservation on DHCP server for that card) with the SAME IP address as vmnic1 card, there are some errors but the card starts working! Web server works (nut NOT UI), I download client and it connects.

I have sucessfuly created a datastore on the host as well on SATA drive.

So it IS supported via forcedeth but probably there is some naming convention that is not bringing the card correctly. Additionally, I cannot see the eth0 (Onboard Nvidia) card as Physical adapter.

When I try to add atleast 3Com as physical adapter I get some strange error that "esxcfg-boot -i executed fine but instead of 0 it got 255 value." I have no clue whatsoever what that meanss so if anyone could explain in basic terms what that means and where to look for help in resolving this matter.

Last but not least, I would atleast like to have this eth0 up and Dhclient run automatically so I can connect to SC/ssh even in this type of (mis)configuration in case no other issues can be resolved so I can finally hook it up away from my main monitor Smiley Happy

P.S. Hopefully someone can make heads and tails in this post Smiley Wink

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Dave_Mishchenko
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ESX uses Linux for the installer but the vmkernel that boots is not Linux so the problem is that the 3com doesn't work with the vmkernel.

What's the PCI id for the other NIC?

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americhanac
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I hate to spam the board but I find hard to believe that no one can help me with any of this - if people working on ESX 3.5 cannot than I find that very disturbing 😄

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Dave_Mishchenko
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ESX uses Linux for the installer but the vmkernel that boots is not Linux so the problem is that the 3com doesn't work with the vmkernel.

What's the PCI id for the other NIC?

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americhanac
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Sometimes themost simple questions/answers are helping 😄

I have a very good news for all MCP61 motherboard owners on how to enable onboard LAN.

Only one step is required and that is to change the name of any device with vedor id 10de (nVidia) in forcdeth.xml located in /etc/vmware/pciid to 03ef (PCIID of the device when listed by lspci command) by booting to Service Console.

After that, just run esxcfg-pciid and reboot the server.

Basicaly, the procedure is the same as for enabling MCP61 SATA.

Very happy about this news I must say as my server is working perfectly and in low-budget Smiley Happy

P.S. SATA information is located in the same folder under sata_nv.xml and last ID entry should be changed to 03f6.

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jtomiser
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I have this exact same motherboard but I'm still stuck on getting ESX 3.5 to recognize the SATA controller. Should it see it during the installation or do I need to provide the driver? How, on a floppy? And do I pull it off the CD or download it from Gigabyte's web site?

Sorry for the dumb questions but I'm just getting started with this.

Thanks,

Jim

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americhanac
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Hi there,

install, choose Service console during boot and change the files as I wrote in the instructions.

Than reboot and SATA shoud work just fine Smiley Happy Don't give up on the first few tries, it's worth it!

Good luck!

P.S. Do not forget to ADD your SATA as RAID during BIOS setup (hint: at one point in time you must press F10!) before you start the ESX installation Smiley Happy

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