taylorjonl's Posts

taylorjonl · ‎01-30-2012

I tried running that test, it shows unsupported but I think my issue is audio, the audio on the video card is disabled because I am using a DVI adapter and my monitor doesn't support the audio. ...

I tried running that test, it shows unsupported but I think my issue is audio, the audio on the video card is disabled because I am using a DVI adapter and my monitor doesn't support the audio. I also don't have a TV that I can connect to it right now, this server is heavy and my TV is heavy so I don't want to risk moving either for a test. I never had any intention of getting video working on this machine, it was to be my HTPC using the Ceton InfiniTV card to stream cable TV to my extenders, which it is doing flawlessly. I actually think it is performing better than my dedicated machine. Today I stressed out my latest install, I had it record 4 channels at once which I switched between them with my extender, it worked out well. The CPU on the guest was near 0% and the host was near 0%. I am going to let it run for several days, after scheduling several recordings, to see how stable it is. I have spent the past couple days refining my solution and documenting it so I can reproduce it and so that others that want to do the same are not lost. If anyone is interested, I created a document on google docs with my steps, here is a link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10landBzOrcGJ4DZr2G8n8YNsE4nF9gTp-bJaPIhB94s/edit?pli=1 It is a work in progress so it will be changing as I refine my system. I will try to keep it semi generic but it is my steps not a tutorial.

taylorjonl · ‎01-29-2012

HDCP is a capability of the GPU, as long as you can install a driver and interact with the card at a hardware level in the guest there is no reason it wouldn't be HDCP compliant. But I think WMC...

HDCP is a capability of the GPU, as long as you can install a driver and interact with the card at a hardware level in the guest there is no reason it wouldn't be HDCP compliant. But I think WMC is retarded and if you have another display adapter that is not HDCP compliant it assumes the whole system isn't HDCP compliant. If you have a way to test a single card for compliance I will run this and give the results but in my guest I am using the Catalyst drivers and it is scoring 7.2 out of 7.9, their is no way to score that unless you have direct access to the hardware.

taylorjonl · ‎01-29-2012

I am not sure how to test DXVA but HDCP was an issue because I wasn't able to get the qemu emulated device to go away without crashing/hanging my VM. Xen 4.2 has lots of patches that may make it...

I am not sure how to test DXVA but HDCP was an issue because I wasn't able to get the qemu emulated device to go away without crashing/hanging my VM. Xen 4.2 has lots of patches that may make it work better but this is still the unstable version and no pre-built packages exist. To get WMC to pass my system for Digital Cable Advisor I found a .cmd file online that tricked it. I wasn't able to test video playback on this VM with WMC because this computer has no audio card. If you look at my motherboard, it is a straight server board, my intention was alway to get a headless HTPC setup that can stream to my extenders. My RAID is handled by my Areca hardware RAID controller, the way it works is in it's BIOS I define volume sets that are exposed to the computers BIOS as physical disks. The OS just needs a driver which Linux has. The guest OS has some paravirtualized drivers for accessing the space I provision for it.

taylorjonl · ‎01-28-2012

I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is I now have a fully virtualized HTPC with three devices passed through, the bad news is I had to abandon ESXi. I have this workin...

I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is I now have a fully virtualized HTPC with three devices passed through, the bad news is I had to abandon ESXi. I have this working on Xen. In order to get this working I had to pass through three devices, the VGA card, the InfiniTV card and the network card. I initially tried just the VGA and InfiniTV card but I found that when an XBox tried to connect the VM would crash, I am assuming it does something fancy with the network card that the emulated drivers don't support. The VM actually performs quite well, when I ran the Windows Experience Index it got: Processor 7.2 out of 7.9 Memory 7.7 out of 7.9 Graphics 7.0 out of 7.9 Hard Disk 5.9 out of 7.9 The hard disk performance will get better, at this time I am using the flat file model for disks but you can use LVM and get better performance. When I do a 'hdparm -tT /dev/sda' I get 350MBps, so I assume the Hard Disk score will jump to close to 7.9. This setup was a proof of concept that it will work, I am going to work on getting it finalized and will post instructions. I am not sure if I can post them here, being that they are for VMware's competitor. Woot, I am so excited, I can finally move on and finish setting up my server. The specs of the system are: 1x Quad Core Xeon E5620 CPU 3x 4gb DDR3 SDRAM (12gb total) 1x ATI Radeon 5670 GPU 1x Areca ARC-1680IX-24 RAID controller 24x 2tb Seagate HDD 4x Intel Gigabit NIC(onboard) 2x Ceton InfiniTV tuner cards(8x total tuners) So exciting to get this working

taylorjonl · ‎08-04-2011

I don't have a lot of details, it recognized, installed the drivers correctly, I was able to display video but when I tried to do something like watch a youtube video, the browser would crash. I...

I don't have a lot of details, it recognized, installed the drivers correctly, I was able to display video but when I tried to do something like watch a youtube video, the browser would crash. I assume the driver didn't do the hardware assist correctly and may be something I could fix but I had to box it up to move. I didn't have any OS instability. I may start looking into this again once I move and get settled in but it isn't my highest priority, I instead just built me a $400 HTPC.

taylorjonl · ‎08-04-2011

My motherboard is a TYAN S7012GM4NR which has the following chipsets: Intel 5520 / ICH10R. I wouldn't say it worked, it installed and passed through to the VM but it wasn't fully functional. I ...

My motherboard is a TYAN S7012GM4NR which has the following chipsets: Intel 5520 / ICH10R. I wouldn't say it worked, it installed and passed through to the VM but it wasn't fully functional. I havne't worked on it in a while, it is boxed up because I moved, just closed on my new house so I will be pulling it out soon though.

taylorjonl · ‎01-04-2011

My 5670 has 512MB of RAM.

taylorjonl · ‎01-03-2011

I tried that, I actually reinstalled VMware thinking I had messed up my installation somehow. Nothing helped.

taylorjonl · ‎12-24-2010

All it says is MEMORY MANAGEMENT, no codes, just that. I may not be doing this anymore, I was doing this to setup a Windows Media Center for a Ceton InfiniTV card but it seems that because ESXi ...

All it says is MEMORY MANAGEMENT, no codes, just that. I may not be doing this anymore, I was doing this to setup a Windows Media Center for a Ceton InfiniTV card but it seems that because ESXi has a video controller I can't remove, it makes the system not HDCP compliant. So unless I can figure out a way to resolve that I can't do this.

taylorjonl · ‎12-23-2010

Yes, if I setup the VM as 2gb, it runs fine, if I then change it to say 3gb it has an issue. It is an ATI Radeon 5670.

taylorjonl · ‎12-23-2010

So if I recreate the VM and only give it 2gb of RAM instead of 4gb of RAM it works fine. The host has 12gb of RAM and no other VMs running, yet. This information helpful?

taylorjonl · ‎12-23-2010

I am using VMware ESXi and I am trying to setup a guest that is Windows 7 that will have an ATI Radeon video card passed through to it. I actually had this working on a previous system but I had...

I am using VMware ESXi and I am trying to setup a guest that is Windows 7 that will have an ATI Radeon video card passed through to it. I actually had this working on a previous system but I had to reinstall. Now when I do this the guest fails to start and I get the following: Error message from localhost.XXXXXXXXXXX: PCIPassthru 004:00.0: Guest tried to (null)map 32 device pages (with base address of 0xb5d20) to a range occupied by main memory. This is outside of the PCI Hole. Add pciHole.start = "2909" to the configuration file and then power on the VM. error 12/23/2010 1:04:36 PM media User When I do as it asks, the guest now starts but gets an immediate BSOD concerning memory management. Any ideas on why this is occuring and why it worked at one point but now it fails?

taylorjonl · ‎12-19-2010

Awesome, that worked like a charm

taylorjonl · ‎12-19-2010

I have a system that has an Areca ARC-1680ix. The driver isn't available on the install CD so I installed the drive on the motherboards SATA controller, installed VMware ESXi, installed the corr...

I have a system that has an Areca ARC-1680ix. The driver isn't available on the install CD so I installed the drive on the motherboards SATA controller, installed VMware ESXi, installed the correct drivers. Then I restarted, moved the drive to my RAID controller as a pass-through. VMware ESXi boots fine but the DataStore it normally creates with the spare space on the drive isn't available. When I try to create a new DataStore and point it to this disk, it sees the VMFS and even gives me the label. The wizard gives me 2 options that make sense: Keep the existing signature Assign a new signature When I select either of them and click next, it says "The selected disk already has a VMFS datastore. Select another disk.". The datastore doesn't have any data on it so if I had to delete it and recreate it I am ok with this. Or do I need to create a custom install disk with my RAID drivers installed then reinstall?

taylorjonl · ‎12-19-2010

I think you are talking VMFS and he is speaking of VMDK.

taylorjonl · ‎12-19-2010

This isn't too big of a deal, I can either expose multiple 2tb VMDKs to the VMs or I may setup a virtual OpenFiler instance that has multiple physical volumes then expose a single iSCSI target fo...

This isn't too big of a deal, I can either expose multiple 2tb VMDKs to the VMs or I may setup a virtual OpenFiler instance that has multiple physical volumes then expose a single iSCSI target for the windows VM or even a SAMBA share. I just need to do some tests.

taylorjonl · ‎12-19-2010

I planned on keeping the 500gb seperate. My plan is this: 500gb VMFS for VMs plus ISOs/SUPPORT 12TB VMFS for data, like videos, recordings, etc 60GB SSD for page-files I have heard mixed...

I planned on keeping the 500gb seperate. My plan is this: 500gb VMFS for VMs plus ISOs/SUPPORT 12TB VMFS for data, like videos, recordings, etc 60GB SSD for page-files I have heard mixed opinions about extents but in my situation I think it is my only option. I am setting up LUNs of 2000GB size on my RAID controller. I already resolved the issues with the drivers, booting off a USB drive that has the drivers. Will booting off the USB drive affect performance once it is fully booted? If so I need to integrate to the install CD, if not I will just plug this USB drive into the internal connector on the motherboard. It does support VT-d, this is actually why I upgraded from my 2x4 Opteron system. I already messed around, got an ATI Radeon 5670 pass-through working, it scored 6.9 out of 8.0 in the Windows Experience Index, just as good as my workstation My current case has 24 drive bays, I have 4x for the RAID10, 8x for the RAID6, 1x for the SSD and I want 3x for some hot-spare drives. This leaves 8x remaining slots for more drives. My hopes are that as my storage needs increase in a couple years, I can buy 4x HDDs, create a new RAID6 array, and add new extents to my VMFS for data, is this a good plan? Also I have more questions. At this time I have 12000GB of usable, if I setup 5000GB VMDK(thin provision) for recordings and a 12000GB VMDK(thin provision) for other stuff, will that work? Then as I approach full I need to add more drives through extents? If in 5 years I have 24000GB, can I then expand both those VMDKs to larger sizes? Or should I today plan for the future and make the VMDKs what I estimate my max, so maybe 19000GB for other and 5000GB for recordings?

taylorjonl · ‎12-18-2010

I am building a VMware ESXi 4.1 system that will consolidate all my home systems. The parts are below: Xeon E5620(one right now but will do another after christmas) 12GB of DDR3 RAM(will dou...

I am building a VMware ESXi 4.1 system that will consolidate all my home systems. The parts are below: Xeon E5620(one right now but will do another after christmas) 12GB of DDR3 RAM(will double after christmas) Tyan S7012 Motherboard Areca ARC-1680ix-24 4x250GB HDD(RAID 10) 8x2TB HDD(RAID 6) Initially I was attempting to setup a second system that would be an OpenFiler system that would expose iSCSI LUNs to VMware but I didn't like the performance. I tried getting better ethernet hardware(2x Intel Pro/1000 dual port nics) and tried setting up teaming, but it didn't work out so well and me needing a SAN for home is really overkill since I don't need vMotion and 100% up-time. So I am back to figuring out how to setup the DataStores. The 500GB RAID 10 storage can be a single VMFS but the 12TB of RAID 6 storage will need to be spanned VMFS? Should I make the 500GB a single VMFS? Should I setup my RAID controller to expose 2TB LUNs then span those into a single VMFS? I have a book that talks about LUN queues and performance but this book is really geared to the SAN storage spectrum. I really just need some guidance, I want to get this setup ASAP so I can turn off several machines. My current setup consumes around 600 watts, the current system consumes just 250 so far, I know this will go up as CPU utilization goes up but I would think it would save me a bit of money on the power. I also want to be ready for my Ceton InfiniTV 4 to arrive in January so I can setup a virtual HTPC with pass-through

taylorjonl · ‎11-30-2010

I have been working on getting a home setup going that will consolidate my many systems into a single system. At this time I have a SAN, HTPC, Domain Controller, Router and a couple other misc b...

I have been working on getting a home setup going that will consolidate my many systems into a single system. At this time I have a SAN, HTPC, Domain Controller, Router and a couple other misc boxes lying around. I want to try to consolidate them into a single machine. I think I can get them in a single machine with Intel VT-D, all the machines except the HTPC are trivial. The HTPC runs Windows 7 and has a cable tuner card. I think with VT-D I can pass-through this PCI-E device to the VM and it will work like a champ but before I spend $2000 on the hardware I want a sanity check, mostly because I can't find a definitive answer on whether the CPU needs to support VT-D. The CPU I want to get is an Intel Xeon 5620, the 55XX series says it has VT-D but the 56XX series doesn't comment. I have read misc posts where people say this is a motherboard(chipset) feature but before I spend $2000 on hardware I want to get some opinions. First question, can anyone comment on the assumption that VT-D is a chipset feature and has nothing to do with the CPU or at least that the Intel Xeon 56XX supports VT-D as long as the chipset does? Next, here is my proposed upgrade: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182177 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117234 x2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220408 x2 For anyone skimming this is a 2x Intel Xeon 5620 setup with 24gb of RAM. I know the board supports VT-D, I read the manual. My concern is the CPU support for VT-D. So my assumption is that if I buy the above, pair it with: Areca ARC-1680ix-24 Raid Controller That I should be able to install my cable tuner card and pass-through to the HTPC VM. Sound sane? My hope is to possibly be able to pass-through other PCI-E devices since that motherboard has tons of potential.

taylorjonl · ‎11-06-2010

That worked great, I now have ESXi running on a USB drive but I would like to have it run off of a RAID member on the controller, how do I go from a working USB install to the RAID member?

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taylorjonl's Posts

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

VMDirectPath and ATI Radeon

Re: DataStore missing and unmountable

DataStore missing and unmountable

Re: Best storage configuration

Re: Best storage configuration

Re: Best storage configuration

Best storage configuration

Sanity check my direction

Re: VMware ESXi 4.1 and Areca controller