X520-DA2 Compatibility Issue

[pyatty]

I am having an issue with an X520-DA2 Intel NIC. It does not show up after installing vSphere 5.5. We have this card running in multiple servers and have never had an issue. It is on the compatibility list.

I have tried installing 5.1 and 4.1 but get the same thing. The NIC does not show up.

I thought maybe it was a bad NIC, so I put another one in there, the same model, and it doesn't see that either.

I have tried installing the driver from vmware's site, ixgbe-3.19.1-1448798, and that does not help.

I installed Window Server 2008 and the NIC shows up no problem.

I have contacted Intel and they just give me the runaround and say it's a vmware issue.

This is a brand new Intel server, Product Code: R2308GZ4GC. And their site says that this system board supports this NIC.

Has anyone ever seen this before?

Like I said, this card works in all different kinds of servers, Intel and Dell, with different version of vSphere, and we've never had a problem.

I really don't even care if it's not going to work. I just want to know what card to buy so I can get this thing up and running. And I don't know what will work since this one is supposedly compatible according to Intel and vmware's site.

Any ideas?

[sui245]

Maybe try it this way

You must disabled option in BIOS "Default Memory Mapped IO above 4 GB"

And also other riser card

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-033701.htm

[EngAdmins]

Do you have INTEL branded SFPs in it?

http://www.intel.com/support/network/adapter/pro100/sb/CS-030612.htm

[sui245]

Yes, i have SFP on this part number E10GSFPSR

[Texiwill]

Hello,

You may want to try a different slot? If it is on a riser is the riser properly plugged in, etc. I would start to compare BIOS settings between a working a non-working host. Also, go to the CLI of the host and run the 'lspci' command, do you see the adapter there? If you see the device with lspci and not within vCenter/esxcfg then there is a driver issue. If you do not see the device at all, then it is the slot/device/riser/etc.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, 2010, 2011,2012,2013,2014

Author of the books 'VMWare ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. 'VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment', Copyright 2009 Pearson Education.

Virtualization and Cloud Security Analyst: The Virtualization Practice, LLC -- vSphere Upgrade Saga -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast

[MKguy]

Here's a more recent ixgbe (3.21.4) driver you could try:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI55-INTEL-IXGBE-3214&productId=353

Run the following on the ESXi shell and post the result here, it should list detailed info on every Ethernet controller PCI device:

# esxcli hardware pci list | grep "Device Class: 0x0200" -A20 -B15

You may also want to compare the output with your other working hosts.