shikran
Contributor
Contributor

network adataper issue on Asus Board

i m newbie and trying to install ESXI 5.1 on Asus motherboard. during installation, it throws an error something that network adapter is not attached or driver not found and restart. though motherboard has 2 built in network adapters on it.. i also tried to attach DLink external adapter but this was also not detecting.. i could not find any drivers or support for this board on vmware website.. can somebody help me..

here is the detail of motherboard:

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- CPU Support Rampage II Extreme Core i7 960(3.2G,L2:4x256KB,L3:8M, r...

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schepp
Leadership
Leadership

Hi, welcome to the communities,

ESXi won't just install on any home user hardware.

You need to make sure to use hardware that's listed as certified under VMware Compatibility Guide: System Search

There is some cheaper home user hardware that will work but is not listed in the guide though. You should google for "ESXi 5.1 homelab". It will return quite a few blogs where people built custom homelabservers and mention the parts that work.

Tim

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shikran
Contributor
Contributor

oh it means vmware support is limited for some specific hardware.. i was assuming that it supports all type of hardware . anyway thnks for info

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schepp
Leadership
Leadership

Hey,

well there is a workaround for learning purposes.

You can install VMware Player ( free for non commercial use ) or VMware Workstation ( not free ) on top of your operating system and install ESXi inside Player or Workstation as a VM.

Searching for "nested ESXi" will bring you more info.

Tim

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shikran
Contributor
Contributor

thnx appreciated.. i m already using vmworkstation on my laptop and installed ESXi using it.. but now i wanted a bare metal installation on this pc and trying to make a complete lab environment.. i dont want to install another OS, thn vmworkstation and thn exsi in it..: (

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