ASUS Motherboard and VMWare ESX 4.0

[esteban2800VBOX]

Has anyone been able to install ESX 4 on a ASUS motherboard model P5E WS Professional? I've been trying to get a clean install at work but no luck. I'm using RAID to recognize 2 partitions. I can't even get it to finish the installation when it PSOD on me. I read someone disabling the APIC but you are disabling all the interrupts for the CPU and it goes nowhere from that. The ASUS BIOS version is 1101; Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @ 2.66Ghz, 4GB DDR-2 800Mhz.

If you have been able to get a clean installation, please let me know.

Thank you

[DSTAVERT]

I will guess that you won't have any luck with the embedded components. Embedded desktop RAID is most often software based and not supported. The Marvell NICs are not likely to be supported. I would have a look through http://vm-help.com to see if there are any recommendations.

[Borja_Mari]

Hi,

check this:

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=52

Maybe this helps you

Regards/Saludos,
Pablo

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[esteban2800VBOX]

Yes, I saw that post already but it did not help. Even the person who posted the solution to PSOD, had other issues. I guess I am going to give up. It's Vmware 2.0 on Windows then. These motherboards are purely crap. I won't buy them at all. By the way, this is not my machine. It's a machine I have been working on at work. I call it "Jesus" for Asus and pray to Jesus that the machine will boot up.LOL!

I'm a Dell, IBM, HP fan, I try not to buy cheap stuff when it comes to high end gear!

-EC

[Andr3y]

one of my ESX servers in lab based on P5QL pro, a bit different chip from 5PE but maybe some things are similar and below will help.

First step is to upgrade the BIOS to latest if you haven't done it yet. For my original setup I was using onboard AHCI running 1 HDD as VMFS and 3xNTFS drives as RDM's. I also did get SIL 3114 which is recognised well by ESX 4.0/4.1 and can map a single drive, but as my HDD died other day didn't have a chance to test RAID 0/1.

Currently using ESXi 4.1 from USB drive and openfiler iSCSI storage on another box.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Andr3y

[esteban2800VBOX]

I'll give it a try today. I have ESXi on my USB. I'm going to check it out if ESX 4.1 will run all the way. First, I need to flash the BIOS with the latest version. I'll keep you posted if it works on the RAID.

[ODBrittonv]

Saying Asus is cheap becuase it won't load ESX is like saying a sports car is crap because it can't tow a boat!

Your problem is you are using components that aren't designed to do what you want.

Take a look a that HCL from Vmware, they support a very limited subset of drivers in order to reduce complexity and increase stability.

Otherwise as mentioned already ESXi on USB is most likely your best option.

One more thing to take a look at, depending on what you want to test is to install ESX/ESXi in to VMware workstaion.

This is what I use for testing new stuff. Basicaly you take you fully loaded computer 64 bit I hope, install a bunch of memory in it and load ESX/ESXi as a VM. You can install multiple copies along with vCenter to test things like HA (Haven't been able to get FT to work with out external storage) It is really very flexible. You also get the ability to snapshot ESX which is cool

I hope you aren't planning to use the ASUS board, or anything else that isn't on the HCL in production...

Good luck!

[willemsej]

I also run a P5E WS Pro. I'm the badkey.com. http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=52

Hope someone can explain me how to create a USB install for ESXi 4.1 on a stick?

Cannot get a upgrade done from 4.0 Build 261974, not from,

1. Fresh install, after the latest BIOS upgrade 1203

2. Not via the CLI

3. Not via vCenter (x64 4.1)

.. so also a bit stuck here.

Regards, John

http://twitter.com/willemsej

[Andr3y]

Same way as ESXi 4.0, but for some it doesn't work, for me it didn't work... there is a long tread on this already on this forum.

I installed ESXi 4.0.0, then installed CLI and upgraded. I don't think you have many other options...

Cheers,

Andr3y

[DSeaman]

I have an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 and it works perfectly, minus the NIC. So I bought a cheapo Intel GbE NIC for like $30 and it works like a charm. I don't use RAID, but works fine with SATA/SSD.

[esteban2800VBOX]

I got it working today. I had to disable the RAID because it does not like the embedded array controller. Also, I does not like the embedded NICs so I had to disable them as well. I only loaded ESXi. I was wondering if it can handle ESX 4? What are your thoughts? It runs OK but it crashes when I shut down the server. I think there is a configuration setting in the BIOS that I am missing.

[esteban2800VBOX]

No, I am not planning to use the ASUS in production. I have this server in my office just to play around with it. I got ESXi working and I had to load it from a USB. It works fine except no RAID with a third vendor NIC.

[Andr3y]

as stated above, you can get PRO/1000 MT from around 15$ these days, full ESX installs fine then.

Do you get PSOD? depends where it hangs... either post a screenshot with latest or you can get logs from /var/log.

I had a PSOD on my laptop with ESX 4.0 all the time, it could not properly shutdown disk controllers, however it came up with message: safe to power off. Since I upgraded to 4.1 issue no longer occurs... You could try different options in BIOS however might not help.

Cheers,

Andr3y

[esteban2800VBOX]

Ok, thank you. I'm planning to blow away ESXi and install ESX (latest version). It's complaining that it can't shutdown properly the hard disk. I'll mess with it today and post my findings for anyone that has a P5E WS Pro. By the way, I do added an Intel 1000 NIC. I'm good in terms of NIC cards.

[golddiggie · Accepted solution]

I would stick with ESXi 4.1 at this point... Since there won't be another release of ESX moving forward (4.1 is the final release) you might as well get onto ESXi now. Plus, there is no ESX to ESXi upgrade path. So if you wanted to install the next release (assuming you can get the hardware to work for the next release) you'll need to perform a full reinstall.

You could also install ESXi 4.1 onto an USB flash drive to avoid hard drive issues (where ESXi resides) on your setup. I have successfully installed ESXi 4.1 onto a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer flash drive (model SDZC6-4096). I installed ESXi 4.0 onto a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Titanium flash drive (SDCZ3-2048). Newer variants of the same lines should yield good results. You can get the newer version (SDCZ36-004G-A11) of the 4GB drive for <$10 on newegg... I would avoid using cheap branded, or non-major branded, flash drives (Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, Lexar are good). I would also go with their high performance models, to ensure that you're not setting yourself up for issues...

What hard drives are you actually using inside this box? I've seen that make a difference too, not just the controller.

VMware VCP4

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[esteban2800VBOX]

I actually tried to install ESX 4.0 and the machine just reboots. I gave up so I went back to ESXi 4.0.

Question: How can I get ESXi patch updates? I don't have vCenter licenses and I can't find the host update utility anywhere?

[DSeaman]

http://www.vmware.com/patch/download/

[willemsej]

I hope to get ESXi 4.1 installed on this ASUS Motherboar. I did not get it in place. Not a clean install from the CDROM nor via vCenter upgrade.

Soon I will try an install from a bootableESXi 4.1 USB stick, hope this will work.

Here is my hardware list:

http://www.badkey.com/db/blogsphere.nsf/d6plinks/JWIE-7Q5JRP

Also see the link on: VMware ESXi Asus P5E and LSI Logic MegaRAID 150

Just installed U2 on the machine and did an upgrade to U3.

Asus P5E WS Professional with a LSI Logic MegaRAID 150 and an Intel PRO/1000 MT Server Adapter card and VMware ESXi.

Firmware: Asus 0803 and LSI 713S the latest firmware

ESXi: VMware ESX Server 3i U3 Version 3.5 Update 3 - 123629 - 11/06/08

Nice to add to: Ultimate ESX Whitebox