3 video cards one mobo & ESXi 5.1u2

[uyozTic]

i have a home ESXi server with a ASUS Sabertooth x79 mobo. with two radeon cards in PCIeX16_1 ad PCIeX16_2.  a HD6870 and 5450 respectively

both work just fine and i can passthru both also to two linux VM's

once the passthru takes over you're no longer able to view ESXi on monitor screen. so i picked up a PCI vga card, evga 6200 and put it into the one PCI slot as PCIex16_3 has an intel dual port nic in it.

i get no video from this PCI vga card if the other radeon cards are inserted. if they are not installed then this PCI vga cards works fine.

wondering if there is a BIOS conf option or? where i can get this PCI card to work with the other two cards installed?

[DavoudTeimouri]

Hi,

Your both video cards are supporting CrossFire but you video cards are not same generation. So they can't work together.

Seems, only one of them can active at same time. Check you BIOS about any other configuration.

[uyozTic]

well both the radeons work as passthru at same time. so my thinking was an inexpensive pci vga card for montior.

as for crossfire not up to speed on that but i will post this in the asus forum and see about a BIOS option. yeah, hoping there is one there.

thanks

[uyozTic]

i installed ESXi 5.1u2 as a fresh install onto usb drive.

all three video cards are available for passthru according to vSphere client 5.1.1471691. that's good news.

it looks like to me that ESXi picks up the first video card in either PCIeX_1 or PCIeX_2 slot. if only PCI vga card is installed it picks that one up as expected. never did see a BIOS option to force which VGA slot was default for a directly connected monitor.

i'll just monitor/access ESXi via cli shell or ssh after initial install when needed. i forgot after initial install it isn't vital i have a direct monitor for esxi with thos other tool available.