Im going to go ahead and assume that me making a post like this isnt kosher but Im going to do it anyway because Im out of ideas... I want to build a home lab for ESX and ESXi 4. The only intel board I can find at MicroCenter is the DP45SG and I cant find it on any of the whitebox HCL's. Yes I checked ultimatewhitebox and vm-help. Just curious if anyone is using it and if its fully compatible including the NIC.
thanks
I was looking at the DQ45CB board which is listed on several whitebox sites, and that's almost identical to the DP45SG. Good chances that your board will work fine.
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.).
Yeah I'd love to hear our it works out for you as well as all the components you used. My goal is to get two boxes hooked up to openfiler so I can study for the VCP. I'll be booting off of USB on the host machines I think. Post all the parts for your build!
I was going off of this article...
http://virtuallyeffortless.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/vmware-vsphere-building-a-lab-on-the-cheap/
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,
Are you running ESX or ESXi?
If ESX does your node hang on a reboot?
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.
Hi,
OK. If you do stumble across a fix please pass it on.
I have 3 different Intel boards all showing the same problem.
Regards,
Darren