ESXi - GPU remains in "Passthrough capable" even after reboot

[JohnDoe3321]

I am facing an issue with an ESXi ( 6.7.0 Update 1 ) and the passthrough of a GPU card (NVIDIA Tesla P4).

The GPU card is listed in the "Passthrough capable" PCI Devices section as "Enabled / Needs reboot" but no matter the number of time the ESXi is rebooted, the GPU card does not move to the "Passthrough active" list and thus it cannot be assigned to any VMs.

Note that there is another NVIDIA GPU (RTX 2080) on the system and that one is able to work correctly with the passthrough and be assigned to a VM.

Checking on the ESXi host via the SSH console, I can see in /etc/vmware/esx.conf that the device is listed with "passthru" as owner.

    /device/00000:007:00.0/owner = "passthru"

What else can be done to find the root cause of the problem ?

[vmrale]

Hi,

are there the newest GPU drivers installed in the host?

Check this info:

VMware Compatibility Guide - Shared Pass-Through Graphics

[JohnDoe3321]

Thank you for your input, I do not believe the Shared Pass-through Graphics technology applies in this case as I do not wish to share the GPU between VMs only assign it to one VM.

[vmrale]

Shared Pass-Through is only a category of devices. Tesla P4 is mentioned in Dedicated Graphics too.

VMware Compatibility Guide - vdga

The aim is to check if there's the newest firmware and driver for this GPU installed in Esxi host.

[JohnDoe3321 · Accepted solution]

Issue solved by moving the GPU card to another PCIe port. GPU card was incorrectly installed in a x8 PCIe port with x16 physical dimension.

[vmrale]

I'm glad You made it.

Have a nice day.