Cannot vmotion after 3.0.2 upgrade

[Gene_H]

I vmotioned the guests hot off of the server (vms2) that I then upgraded from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 (using virtual center 2.0.2). After the 3.0.2 upgrade I cannot vmotion the guests back from the second server (vms1) onto the original server (vms2).

I get the following error messages:

Warning: Migration from vms1 to vms2: Migration will cause the virtual machine's configuration to be modified, to preserve the CPU feature requirements for its guest OS.

Error: Unable to migrate from vms1 to vms2: The CPU of the host is incompatible with the CPU feature requirements of the virtual machine; problem detected at CPUID level 0x80000001 register 'edx'.

vms1 is an IBM x3650 7979C3U Quad Core

vms2 is an IBM x3650 7979AC1 Dual Core

I had no problems using vmotion between these servers when they both were at 3.0.1.

Gene

[azn2kew]

Look at this link to see if that help:

[Gene_H]

Further testing leads me to believe that this problem is not related to the hardware (dual core vs. quad core) as I receive the same error messages when I try and vmotion between identical hardware (dual cores). The problem seems to be when trying to vmotion between 3.0.1 and 3.0.2.

Gene

[Gene_H]

After opening a support call (e-mail) I was directed to verify that the BIOS settings for Intel Virtulization Technology and Non-Execute Memory Protection were identicle between the servers that were having problems.

I checked and found a mismatch of the Non-execute memory protection (NX / XD) setting in the BIOS.

This feature is actually called Execute Disable Bit on Intel chips. See

Once I set this feature to "enabled", I was able to eliminate the error message.

I still get the warning message but after further reading in the VMTN forums, I believe that this will go away after upgrading the vmtools to the new 3.0.2 version.

[Gene_H]

Further testing has proved that the problem was caused by an IBM BIOS update 1.0.1 to 1.0.5 that was performed during the same outage as the ESX 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 upgrade.

The new IBM BIOS provided greater granularity and actually shows an increased number of options in the CPU BIOS settings. Unfortunately the 1.0.5 update defaulted the setting to "disabled" when ESX wants it "enabled".

Gene

[azn2kew]

You can check this thread to see if you have any problems with your CPU revision version as described by Steve!

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