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asincero
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ESXi 3.5u4 PSODing. Have screenshot. What could it mean?

I was running ESXi 3.5u3 on a custom built white box. The specs are as follows:

  • Motherboard: Intel BOXDP35DPM ()

  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3Ghz

  • Memory: 8GB DDR2 800

  • NICs: 2 Intel PWLA8391GT GiGE PCI NICs and 3 Intel EXPI9300PTBLK GigE PCIe NICs

The boot drive is a 250GB Western Digital Caviar SATA drive, but I suppose thats largely irrelevant. The VMs live on an NFS server so the local harddrive is just used to boot ESXi and for swap space. All of that hardware is supposed to work with ESXi. I even stuck with all Intel stuff to increase the odds that I won't run into some weird incompatibility problem (at least in my mind I figured ESXi would work best with Intel).

I had ESXi 3.5u3 running on it, and it would mysteriously purple-screen-of-death at seemingly random times. Instead of trying to figure out why, I decided to just upgrade to u4. Unfortunately, it PSODs too. Here's a URL to a screenshot of it (sorry, the picture embedding function seems to be broken at the moment):

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p294/TicKsPics/psod-4222009.jpg

It kind of looks like I might have some bum memory plugged in there. I didn't do a Memtest86 on it when I first built it. I'm running a memory check on it right now as I type this. Hopefully that's all it is. If that's not the problem, then I'm at a loss as to what to do next. I suppose I could try flashing the BIOS to the latest and greatest. Does anybody else have any ideas?

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Does it PSOD when booting or randomly after?

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Dave_Mishchenko
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Does it PSOD when booting or randomly after?

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mcowger
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Given the uptime timestamps in the image, it looks like its at 46 seconds of uptime, so right on boot.

Suggest upgrading BIOS first. if it persists you probably have a hardware fault.






--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
dconvery
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I only have experience with "big three" hardware that is on the HCL. But the few times that I have seen a PSOD have always been hardware related. The random PSODs with 3.5u3 may hold a clue. Upgrading the BIOS is a good thing to try if memtest doesn't produce any errors. The PSOD picture you have looks like it may be related to CPUs 2 and 3. You can try to watch the check screens as it starts up to see where it PSODs

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
asincero
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It happens after.

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asincero
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Yes, when I upgraded to u4 the PSOD happened a lot sooner than with u3. I don't know if that was just coincidence or a change in u4 that caused it to PSOD sooner.

Memtest86 revealed no errors. A BIOS flash is up next.

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asincero
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Flashing to the latest BIOS seemed to have done the trick. As a soak test, I set up 15 virtual machines all running Debian Linux 5, with each one recompiling the kernel and all modules over and over again. It's been at it now for a few hours without a hitch. I'm gonna let it run over night just to be sure, but things are looking pretty stable now.

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