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SipperVixx
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Weird keyboard thing, ESXi won't finish booting until I hit a key at "Vmkernel loaded successfully"

During install and during boot up after install, in the yellow initialization screen, both the install and the boot halts at "Vmkernel loaded successfully" and won't move forward until I hit any key on the keyboard. Once you hit a key, everything moves along nicely. I even tried to start up post-install without a keyboard in and it halts at the same place. Once the keyboard is plugged in, it boots right up. It's a PS2 keyboard. Am gonna try and down rev the bios once and try a USB keyboard, but was curious if anyone had seen this before? Thanks!

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Dave_Mishchenko
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If you search the forum for keyboard you'll find similar issues like this - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1113079#1113079.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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If you search the forum for keyboard you'll find similar issues like this - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1113079#1113079.

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SipperVixx
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I did look through all the discussion topics in the ESXi forum with 'keyboard' in it, and most of them were when the KB was completely unresponsive, versus mine which is responsive, once it's started up after you press a key throughout the startup of the install or the server.

This one was close, but no answer - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1107262#1107262, and even it is different as I can hit keys to 'stimulate' the program to start..heh. I've ordered another motherboard to try, we'll see how it goes. Thanks!

Thanks!

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SipperVixx
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Resolved...I had to go back to the pre-release BIOS ROM for the motherboard...if you can believe it. THanks!

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Crispy2009
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For what it's worth, I too have the M3A78-CM motherboard, experiencing the same issue with Bios version 1603 (ESXi 3.5 U4)

Just downloaded the 1807 BIOS, and restored the default settings of the BIOS after flashing.

Set the SATA to (AHCI) disabled the serial, paralel and audio and OS to non-plug and play. After that the booting proces goes flawless. And at the sime time the problem of drifting of system time seems resolved.

Not using internal Sata though, since that is not supported, have a promise SATA2 card. So not sure if this bios setting makes any difference.

C.

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pixelstix
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We were able to use the ASUS M3A78-CM by disabling the CPU setting for

C1E in the BIOS. (Within VMWare, I've noticed there is a setting under Configuration

-> Software ->Advanced Settings -> VMkernel -> Boot, an

option called VMkernel.Boot.disableC1E, although I have not tried it.)

Also, please note this page with similar information:

Note that the on-board Realtek network driver does not work, you have

to find a supported network adapter (we got one of the Intel 1000

line). Also, we did not use the onboard RAID, as the docs for ESXi says

that onboard SATA RAID does not work or is unstable.

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