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clauberty
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi on Jetway NF9HG-2930 Quad Core 4X Intel LAN, WI-Fi, 8GB, 120 GB HDD

I'm trying to install ESXi on this machine, but without success. I started with the latest 6.5  but till version 5.0.0 all i get a freezing screen at "Reallocating modules and starting up kernel"

IMG-20171014-WA0005.jpeg

With V5 i get the picture above

Hoping for a solution to my situation anxiously waiting for your replays.

Thank's 

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bluefirestorm
Champion
Champion

You have so many components that are not in the Compatibility Guide.

http://jetwaycomputer.com/NF9HG.html

The motherboard NF9HG-2930 and the motherboard manufacturer Jetway is not even in the list VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search

Intel Celeron N2930 processor is also not in the list nor is any from the Bay Trail family of processors VMware Compatibility Guide - cpu

Intel i211AT NIC is not in the list VMware Compatibility Guide - I/O Device Search  although it will likely use the e1000 driver

The Intel Celeron N2930 also does not have Extended Page Table (EPT) and VT-d features.

https://ark.intel.com/products/81073/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2930-2M-Cache-up-to-2_16-GHz

EPT and VMX unrestricted guest features are now required for VMware Workstation 14 (so this board/CPU won't be able to run any VM even in Workstation 14).

EPT is required for nested virtualisation to run 64-bit guest VMs.

While EPT may not be required for earlier versions of ESXi and Workstation, it greatly improves performance as there is no need for hypervisor software-based shadow paging to manage VM memory.

EPT is also used by the Intel VMX Unrestricted Guest feature that basically runs a VM with minimal intervention from the hypervisor software (be it ESXi or Workstation), so performance of any VM is near bare-metal when the hypervisor uses the Intel VMX Unrestricted Guest feature.

So unless performance and risk of getting intermittent and unresolvable PSODs (assuming ESXi install is successful) is not a major concern, using this motherboard for ESXi (or for Workstation 14) is not really recommended.

Considering that the CPU does not have VT-d, you could try disabling the Interrupt Remapping feature by specifying iovDisableIR=TRUE after the runweasel for the ESXi 5.x installation attempt.

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