I had trouble finding it, but I found an Intel DG35EC at Microcenter in Cincinnati (driving 2hrs each way wasn't on the agenda, but instant gratification waits for no one). There are a few more left in the chain, so depending on where you are, you might want to look into it. I was specifically looking for an ESXi 4.0 compatible mATX board w/ 4 DIMM sockets. I'm finishing my install later today, so if you're interested in the results, drop me a line (can you do PMs here? If not, post to the thread.).

I haven't installed any VMs yet, but I now have ESXi 4.0 installed onto the DG35EC - no modifications necessary. It picked up the onboard NIC just fine, as well as the drives hanging off the onboard SATA storage controller. It doesn't, however, pickup the PATA controller or drives (I ended up installing a Promise Ultra133 TX2 to access my PATA drives). I'm able to connect to it just fine with the vSphere client.

Intel DG35EC motherboard, Intel C2D E7300 CPU @ 1.8GHz, 6GB DDR2 800MHz RAM (2 x 2GB + 2 x 1GB), 120GB SATA drive for OS

Good luck!

Hi,

Is your ESX4i box patched up to date? When I did that I could not longer connect via the Infrastructure Client.

Regards,

Darren

Hi,

Yes I'm using ESX, fully patched and up to date. I also get the hang on shutdown error, as it's a study environment for my VCP I haven't bothered trying to fix it.