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Lery154
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-29-2010 03:21 PM

Nic Card Installation Help

I'm running a Dell T610, and ESXi 4.1. It recognizes and runs fine with my two onboard NIC cards. I just purchased an additional two NIC cards. Unfortunately I forgot to check the compatability list for ESXi 4.1 and purchased a brand not on the list. Is there anything I can do to get this working?

Specifically I purchased two of these cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166019

Rosewill RC-411 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Network Adapter

Thanks for any assitance.

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6 Replies
crmstevew
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-29-2010 03:36 PM

I would say that this card would not be recognized by ESXi 4. It should not hurt to install it to see if it is found but the likelihood is low. If you are in a production environment, I would not try to get to the console and attempt to add a driver instance.

Regards,

Steve Williams

http://vmprocess.blogspot.com/

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Lery154
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-29-2010 03:45 PM

I have the two cards installed on the server, but they are not recognized once booted into ESXi 4.1. Using vSphere Client it is not listed as a Network Adapter. I can go directly to the machine, and they are also not listed there.

Is there anyway to load these network card drivers?

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal
‎07-29-2010 04:14 PM

The most asured way is to get a NIC card to be recognize is to make sure it is one of the supported NIC cards found on the HCL -- http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

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Lery154
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-29-2010 05:15 PM

Yes I know, it was my mistake for not doing this initially. Is there anyway to get ESXi to recognize these cards?

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal
‎07-29-2010 07:05 PM

You might check http://vm-help.com/ - this is a site dedicated to helping getting non-supported hardware to work with ESX -

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Lery154
Contributor
Contributor
‎07-30-2010 09:45 AM

I put down a post over at vm-help.com. Hopefully I can find out if I'm out of luck or not.

I did contact the sller of the card, and they said the network card uses a Realtek chipset. On Realtek sebsite I was able to find the Linux drivers. Unfortunately I would have no idea how to install them on ESXi.

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