esxi 5.5 cant recognize pci lan-pci slots

[mehrn]

hello

i have a pc for my lab.

motherbord : ga-z97-d3h

cpu :core7i 1155 4790

lan on bord :Intel^® GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

pci lan :2 Dlink DGE-528T

i have a lot of problem with this motherbord becuse it dosent sopport by vmware.now i buy it unfortunately.

i find vbi files for on bord lan , for Dlink lan and sata-ahci controller and inject them to esxi 5.5 iso.

then iso with no error install but now my esxi cant recognize pci lan(Dlinks)

in 2 picture i see pci-id for drivers in my esxi.i cant find vbi file for others like ( pci bridge bridge :intel corporation 82&01 pci bridge class 0604  8086:244e)

i think my problem is becuse of esxi can not recognize pci slots. is it true?

what do you think?

what can i do?

help me

tanks

[iiToby]

Hi Mehrn,

Without your hardware being the HCL (hardware compatibility list) it hard to say how to get it supported, the vibs are community supported and/or written which means that they may or may not work as expected. I believe you will have a hard time getting this configuration to work.

As this is a lab machine I may suggest that you install Windows or Linux and use VMware Workstation for your lab from there you can install ESXi in workstation and possibly achieve your goals.

Have Fun,

@iiToby

[mehrn]

it means no way to solve my problem?

[CoolRam]

I have  GA-Z97M-D3H motherboard (with i7 4790) to run ESXI 5.5 came across this post looking for an answer - I found one so I thought I'd share

The answer lies in the drivers, ESXi 5.5 doesn't have the right sata-xachi OR NIC drivers.

You can get these in a VIB format here:

(VIB file itself) NIC VIB File: www.tinkertry.com/install-esxi-5-5-with-realtek-8111-or-8168-nic/

(VIB file in the links at the bottom of this page) sata-xachi: http://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/sata-xahci (this site seems broken, if you search and go through the mainpage it can load, this is a copy-paste of the link though...)

Then you will need to inject these into the ESXi 5.5 iso with the ESXi customizer (www.v-front.de/p/esxi-customizer.html).

And then install your customised ESXi iso onto your machine (I used Rufus for this: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/457760 ).

Hope this will work. you can give a try.

[mehrn]

tanks .i done all these steps before.

my problem is another things.esxi know onbord lan but can not recognize pci lan (aditional lan Dlinks).however i download vbi files for pci slots(pci lan) too and inject in esxi 5.5 .

i think esxi cant compeletly know pci slots and i think i , it dosent any solotion.

tanks for every body.

if you find any thing plaese tell me.

[FUR786]

Even esxi 6.0 can not see the pci lan cards.I was trying to test esxi 6.0 on all 64 bit computers including laptops but have same error:

Network Adapter not found.

[npadmani]

Best advise would be, Build the nested environment.

like iiToby said, use vmware workstation 10 or above, start building VMs on top of it and have esxi installed. It will be more flexible and will save lot of energy and time.

since the hardware is not there in HCL, it wouldn't be advised to use it in production.

[iiToby]

Here is a Blog post about running Nested ESXi.

This is for vCloud Air but you can use from the principles for running this on workstation as well

Nested ESXi on vCloud Air | VMware vCloud Blog - VMware Blogs

[FUR786]

I believe, if a software is not user friendly, then it is useless in IT profession.

And also first impression is the last impression.

If you can not install a simple application as bare metal hypervisor due to hardware issues, what do you expect onward...problems and problems

In real production, problems mean layoffs....

I was trying to install vSphere 6.0 for evaluation purpose on Compaq Q5624p but with on luck.

Then I google the Network Adapter issue and found tons of complaints.

Nested ESXi is not the option, you can get the same results from other hypervisors like xen etc.

[iiToby]

Hi FUR786,

Without the Hardware on the HCL, you shouldn't run this in production.

The HCL is the supported hardware from VMware, from what I saw there is no D-Link whatsoever on the HCL.

Unfortunately there is no official way to support this hardware configuration.

Sorry you have had so many problems

@iiToby