Win 2008 R2 guest shutdown with MONITOR PANIC: vcpu-0:ASSERT error

[MR77]

ESXi: 5.0.0 Build: 4692512

Host server: Dell R710, dual core with 80Gb (10 x 8GB in optimised mode)

Guest: Windows 2008 R2 Web Edition

My Win 2008 guest VM shutdown unexpectedly. The error in the log is: 2012-06-23T17:12:15.352Z| vcpu-2| MONITOR PANIC: vcpu-0:ASSERT vmcore/exts/hv/vt/hv-vt.c:1693 bugNr=676321

Attached is the vmware.log. I've googled the error message and the information I've found indicates this was a known bug in older versions of ESX.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

MR

[admin]

This is an unresolved issue.  It is unlikely that you will see this error again.  If you do have a reproducible case, we would like to work with you to determine the cause of this problem.

[BharatR]

Hi,

Try the below steps it may be helpful to you.

1. Add the following line to  the virtual machine's configuration ( .vmx) file:
   
   timeTracker.lazyApic=FALSE
   
   Note: For more information, see Tips for editing a .vmx file  (1714).
2. Restart the virtual  machine to apply changes.
   

[hpmattr]

We saw this same issue and it would happen repeatedly to the same VMs.

Ultimately, our issue was a CPU issue, not an issue with VMWare.  The E5-26xx series CPUs exhibit a rare bug related to VT instructions and there was a BIOS update to resolve.  In the case of an HP BL460c Gen8, the BIOS update to I31 2013.09.08 resolved the issue for us.  I would assume all manufacturers using E5-26xx CPUs will be releasing similar updates.

[admin]

Errors involving bugNr=676321 as well as other system instability issues can be the result of erratum BT-248 on Intel E5 series processors (and related errata on other processor series).  If there is no BIOS update for your system, VMware has released software updates to work around this issue.