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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESXi 5.x on an Intel J1900 board (Q1900-ITX Asrock) issue

Hello everyone!

I have been trying to install ESXi 5.1u1 & 5.1u2 & 5.5u1 on the following configuration to no success so far:

Asrock Q1900-ITX mobo (Intel J1900 Baytrail SoC, BIOS 1.20 with VT-x support)

8GB RAM Kingston

120GB OCZ Vector 150 (tried to connect on both SATA2.0 and SATA3.0)

Intel CT1000 NIC

Bootable 4GB FAT32 USB stick with an extracted installation (using Unetbootin) (tried to connect on both USB2.0 and USB3.0)

ESXi 5.1uX results in/stops at a black window/screen after the "Relocating modules and starting the kernel" message.

ESXi 5.5u1 starts loading the modules and stops/freezes right after the "Relocating modules and starting the kernel" message.

I have tried in the bios:

- Boot USB legacy

- Boot USB UEFI

- Disabled PXE (both NICs)

- Video memory to a minimum (64MB)

- Disabled onboard audio & NIC

- I have tried (unofficial?) inserting drivers into the installation ISO (NIC/microcode/xahci) from v-front.de.

I know that most/all of my hardware is not on the HCL, which doesn't mean it can't work, of course (like my old system).

All to no luck so far. However I successfully installed Proxmox hypervisor on this system. Others successfully installed NAS4Free (FreeBSD) or Ubuntu/Debian.

But I want ESXi 5.x for my home server, like I have on my old Intel D525 with a max of 4GB and OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (ESXi 5.1u2).

Maybe someone has some tips or advice to install ESXi 5.x on my new system?

136 Replies
gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What I forgot to mention was that I've disabled LPT & COM in the bios as well.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Can you get to the vmkernel log with Alt-F12?

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've tried:

- to Alt-F12 when it seems to hang (num-lock on/off still works) but it didn't switch to the log file

- boot with: vmkBootVerbose=TRUE vmbLog=TRUE works, but no extra info

- turned off VT-x support in the bios and then back on

- wrote the ISO to disk with imagewriter instead of unetbootin (not able to boot from USB)

- disabled realtek NIC

- removed intel NIC (and enabled realtek NIC)

- removed the Vector 150 SSD

- loaded UEFI defaults


No luck yet Smiley Happy


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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I suspect a CPU compatibility issue.  Is it possible to hook up the serial port to another machine?

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hmm not at this moment, I'll have a look for an serial and usb-to-serial at work tomorrow. Any other ideas/experiences to share at this moment? Thanks in advance!

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psychowood
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I experienced the same problems with a Gigabyte GA-J1900N-D3V (J1900 based with dual Nic), some details more on vm-help . I ended returning the board and keep using my D2700MUD (which works quite well with 8GB of RAM despite not being officially supported)  as a whitebox.

The error seems quite similar to the one I had with a previous Atom motherboard, solved selecting 8MB of video ram instead of 16, which is not available on those J1900 boards). Some other things I did not have the time to try:

  • Hack the CMOS settings with an editor to force 8MB of vRAM (no idea if possible)
  • Try with a discrete VGA card with 8MB of vRAM (not sure if available on PCIe slot)
  • Disable SATA
  • Disable power and performance options (i.e. no speedstep, just 1 core enabled)
  • Try Hyper-V 2012, should be supported since it is Win8-based 🙂
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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

jmattson, I discovered last friday, when I got all the cables, that I don't have an COM port on my I/O panel back. It requires an extra mobo connector, which i don't have unfortunately Smiley Sad

Thanks psychowood for your response.

Regarding option 1, I don't have a clue whether that's possible and how.

Option 2, I've found some graphic cards, however memory starts at 32MB and up and is a little expensive.

Option 3, I've tried disabling SATA3 to no success, but do you mean SATA2 also? My final setup requires an SSD and an HDD. I've also tried to detach both drives (so not disabled both) during install, to no success.

Option 4, No speedstep is one thing I can try, I'm not sure about just 1 core. Will report later!

Option 5, I think this will work because the board is compatible with Win8. However I don't want a Windows server :smileysilly:

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've tried disabling:
- EIST

- C1E

- CPU C state (instead of C7)

- SATA2 + SATA3 at the same time

Have tried the HP ESXi customized ISO. Still stuck at relocating modules and starting the kernel.

Not ideal, but would it be possible to install ESXi 5.5 using my D525 mobo and then move the SSD to the Q1900 mobo?

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psychowood
Contributor
Contributor

Not ideal, but would it be possible to install ESXi 5.5 using my D525 mobo and then move the SSD to the Q1900 mobo?

Nope, the kernel is the same for both the setup and the run configurations, since there are no drivers installed (I tried with my D2700 install, same result).

I throw the towel, will try with ESXi 6 when/if will come out 🙂

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

gbonny wrote:

jmattson, I discovered last friday, when I got all the cables, that I don't have an COM port on my I/O panel back. It requires an extra mobo connector, which i don't have unfortunately Smiley Sad

I don't know how well this works with ESXi 5.5, but you could try the following boot option (Use Shift-O early in boot to add boot options):

logOnScreen

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Unfortunately "logOnScreen" doesn't help. I've disabled SATA2 and set C states to C6 (instead of C7 which is not listed in the docs).

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESXi 4.1 update 3 gives a PSOD: NOT_IMPLEMENTED bora/vmkernel/hardware/ioapic.c:607

cr0=0x8001003b cr2=0x0 cr3=0x3ee000 cr4=0x668

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

using unetbootin version 4.9.4 it hangs already on "/loading /lsi_mr3.v00" ?

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Changing the iso to usb tool to Rufus doesn't help either for ESXi 5.5 update 1. Installer hangs also on: Relocating modules and starting up the kernel.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Try the following boot options:

noIOMMU noPoisonPagePool logOnScreen

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gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks jmattson, no luck though :s I've tried all possible combinations on both original ESXi 5.5 install and custimized ESXi 5.5 install..

However is there a list or page with all possible boot options and an explanation of each option? I've tried googling it but cant find it..

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

gbonny wrote:

Thanks jmattson, no luck though :s I've tried all possible combinations on both original ESXi 5.5 install and custimized ESXi 5.5 install..

However is there a list or page with all possible boot options and an explanation of each option? I've tried googling it but cant find it..

I am unaware of such a list.

Try adding these options as well:

iovDisableIR=TRUE vmbLog=TRUE

gbonny
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Still no luck Smiley Happy

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psychowood
Contributor
Contributor

I tried (but was unsuccesful) to persist the boot logs in a scratch directory, if you want to try Smiley Happy

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=103369...

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