Intel I350-T4 only recognized by Esx 5.5, not by 5.5 U2

[ChristianKueppe]

Hi all,

I relative new to ESx, sind 5.0.

Until 5.5 all went fine, inserting the Quadport I350 in 5.5, rebooting, NICs were recognied. Made an Udate to 5.5 U2 via ESX-Cli and the four ports disappeared.

MAde the update via CD again (maybe somethng went wrong) , message, no adaper recognized. With intel igb 5.2.7 driver in Image

MAde a clean 5.5 U2 install, same message.with intel igb 5.2.5 in Image

MAde a new 5.5 Install with base image, Adapter are back with vmware-igb 2.*.

Update of the driver to 5.2.5 with cli went fine- Reboot, Host not pingable.

Does anyone have an idea?

It´s a play system no need to hurry up.

regards,

Christian

[HenkeJ]

I have the same problem. Installing Esxi 5.5 works just fine. It even recognize my Realtek NIC (builtin NIC in motherboard), but when I try to update to 5.5 u1 or u2 it just says "No Network Adapters". I've got a friend with a different setup but with the same NIC (Intel i350-T4) and it works just fine for him. I keep wondering if Vmware has done something in the last few months with the U2 installation?

I have tried to customize the iso with drivers exactly like you Christian with the same driver versions.

I'm using the following motherboard:

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0

**Update:**

I have tried with different asyncs drivers now for 5.5 u2 but the same result. "No Network Adapters" during installation/update.

Message was edited by: HenkeJ

[stamster]

Uh-oh dear VMware....  I don't know where you're heading, but I can smell it's Microsoft route - path of self destruction.

First there was an issue wtih Realtek nics. After 5.1 no more drivers for Realtek nics. OK, no 'enterprise' targeted chips so we said fine, we could live with 5.1->upgrade and preserve drivers->5.5.

But now I got an big black machine with i350 T4 chip (quad port). And yet I cannot install the damn thing! NO ADAPTERS FOUND!

I relocated the NIC onto my whitebox machine (which has 3x Realtek nics and working just fine with 5.1 upgraded to 5.5 U2), and guess what - lspci shows adapters just fine but ESXi 5.5 U2 is unable to load drivers for those i.e. NOT even showing on esxcli network nic list! I've tried various versions of igb drivers, both older and the latest ones, but still was unable to get it working!

Big big shame on you VMware. This card costs 400+ $ (300+ EUR) and you state on your HCL it's suppose to be working out of the box but yet it doesn't work on latest and STABLE Hypervisor software from your factory (5.5 U2)?!

Friendly advice: take a breath to remember that Hypervisor ESXi is your flagship software, and that this game of thrones with NIC drivers can't be good for ESXi future!

Since I work for a company which is 100% on ESXi (16 ESXi hosts), I will ASAP initiate procedure evaluating XenServer instead of VMware. TCO with Xen is better anyway. When you realize that more and more customers are heading that route, I'm afraid it's gonna be too late... but that's how it goes in IT business!

Shame shame shame, all I can say on this!!!

[ben9035]

Were you able to make any headway with this issue?  I'm experiencing it in my environment as well.

[stamster]

Hello ben9035,

Please PM me (since I cannot), I did an workaround for i350 chip and 5.5 series of ESXi.

[Christian_SN]

Hi stamster and threadfollower,

as yet I missed the 10 point to write PMs 🙂

But I am very interested in solutions of this topic.

Are there different version (steppings?)  of i350-T4 on the market?

Is it important for running the driver for i340 if the nic is type with 1, 2 or 4 ports?

(How can it be, that the VMw Hardware Compatibility Guide is so misleading?

Please point me to a thread about that matter)

thanks in advance,

Christian

[stamster]

Go to Intel site and download latest firmware update utility for Intel network controllers. Flash your card with that firmware, but first backup "official" firmware that came pre-installed with the card.

After successful update, you should be able to boot straight into ESXi 5.5 U2.

It seems that VMware support doesn't know about this solution, which is a shame, isn't it?

[bamboule]

Hello,

Have you a Link for the Tool... I find only the preboot image?! 

Thanks for your help

[obriensl]

Has anyone found the answer to this?  we are seeing this issue now - has it been fixed in 5.5 update 3 or in 6.0?

[kbulgrien4freed]

stamster got it right but didn't provide much in the way of detail.  More explicit direction on using the Intel utility to resolve this issue appears in the following topic:

Re: Intel I350 NIC not working on ESXi 6.0 build-2715440