How do I not load a specific NIC?

[John_Balsillie]

Let's say I have an ESX host with 6 nics, 4 of which are connected and used. The other 2 are not connected and not used.

How would I configure ESX to not see the unused NICs? Let's also assume that all 6 NICs are identical, so it's not a matter of not loading a driver at boot time as the driver is required for the 4 required NICs.

So this is really a question of whether or not it's possible to block a PCI slot and its installed NIC from being visible to ESX.

The actual requirement is to prevent Insight Manager from reporting not-connected NICs as an error.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Dean_Holland · Accepted solution]

I don't believe there is a way to "hide" hardware from ESX.

It might be better to have IM ignore alerts from those two NICs?

[mudha]

i gues thr is no way to hide hw from the esx but would you pl tell me that how ru planning to load NIC as durring that time we can do this through virtual switch

[dellboy]

Can you disable them in the BIOS instead?

[JoJoGabor]

(Sorry if this answer sounds stupid)

Can you just take the cards out?