Geoff64's Posts

Wow, this really baffles me.  You can't assign a simple USB HID device to a guest VM?  I was planning on using ESXi to virtualize some HTPCs, and I was thinking the GPU pass through was going to be the hard part.  But something as simple as USB keyboard assignment? This made me rethink my entire approach.  I installed CentOS on the box, picked "Virtual Host" as the option, imported a VM and assigned a USB keyboard from virt-manager no problem.  In fact, the entire process went so smoothly (in about 2 hours), that now I'm almost glad ESXi had this issue.  With CentOS/virt-manager I can now mirror my VM storage (did that on the CentOS install), and even pass through my striped array to a "filer" VM (instead of messing with SATA passthrough).  I benchmarked virtio on 2 striped seagate 3TB drives and got this:   Host:  benchmark: avg read: 317 MB/s  avg write: 230 MB/s  avg access: 16.8ms   Guest: benchmark: avg read: 315 MB/s  avg write: 219 MB/s  avg access: 16.8ms I'm still puzzled how ESXi can't do this....

Just to add my own resolution info to the thread:   Swapping the motherboard (MSI-P55-GD65 instead of GA-P55-USB3) resolved my issue! I also used http://www.bussink.ch/?p=1228 and http://www.tinkertry.com/rufus-takes-2-minutes-to-create-a-bootable-usb-flash-drive-for-esxi-installation/ to make a bootable USB installer drive, worked great.  Both onboard NICs are recognized (though only one was enabled by default). Gigabyte did respond to my requests, however,  they kept stating VT-d would not work with the P55 chipset (in spite of my information to the contrary, even referring to other Gigabyte P55 success stories).  The MSI board just worked, I didn't even update the BIOS. Now I have the vSphere Client up, and we'll see about getting GPU passthru working...

XenServer also hangs on install (something to do with ACPI and/or PCI bus detection). Since these all fail to me, I presume it's something to do with incomplete BIOS support for VT-d. By chance, I stumbled upon a reference to someone else who also had a GA-P55-USB3 board, and I7-860, who had poor results, but then swapped to the MSI-P55-GD65 and got his setup working. As it turns out I have that MB in another machine, so I will attempt that swap as well.

I tried the ESXi 5.1 installer last night, and it hung in a different spot ("Initializing ACPI").  I might try some even older releases to see what they tell me (I have seen posts from people running my same MB and BIOS, that had ESXi working - but they didn't mention the version). Also, I will try XenServer to see what that tells me.  I'll post my results. Geoff

I have the same issue, trying to install on a GA-P55-USB3 motherboard.  I've disconnected all SATA drives, no change.  Also, I've booted off a USB DVD and USB thumb drive, same result. Have you made any progress? Geoff