Upgrading a Server running 4.1.0

[bghanson]

I have a Dell Power Edge R2970 that had one CPU and four GB RAM installed and was running ESXi 4.1.0 build 502767. It was used for some older archived VM guest the we need to maintain for historical and Electronic Discovery purposes. We wanted to add some more older VM Guests to it had it had plenty of local storage for it Data Store. How ever it only had one quad core CPU and 4 GB RAM.  I ordered and install a second CPU and eight 4GB sticks of RAM. The server sees the second CPU but does not like the new RAM. Whin I use any combination of the new memory I get a Memory Error #2021, memory configuration error.

I reinstalled the original RAM and the server Boots but sits at the "Starting VMKernal Initialization" screen with no movement.  I rebooted the system before I left last night and it was at the same point when I arrived at work this morning.

Is VMwar 4.1.0 not smart enough to know/handle adding a second CPU to an existing installation?  Do I need to reinstall VMware with the second CPU installed?

Any ideas on the memory issue? According to Dell's spec's sheet this server can take up to 64GB RAM in 8 DIMM slots (4 white & 4 black). The RAM stick can be 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB sticks.  The sticks I ordered were 4GB DDR2 667MHz ECC REG DIMM (PC25300) which is the same type that was installed just twice as many and 4GB as compared to 1GB.

[Alistar]

Hi there,

Have you inquired about how many Ranks they have? Perhaps the channel can't handle that much Ranks per the amount of memory sticks you put into. If I am aware back in the days DDR2 still used Dual Channel technology - Were you successful in booting your server up with just one memory module on the first slot of the first chnnel on both CPUs? Refer to this post: Dell Warning: The current memory configuration is not optimal. - Steve Jenkins' Blog and check serial numbers on all modules if they correlate.

[bghanson · Accepted solution]

The memory problem was with the mother board.  I found another server to use in its place.