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Thread ID: 122544 2011-12-29 03:00:00 Installing 2nd NIC on HP Elite 8200 SFF desktop chiefnz (545) Press F1
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1251078 2011-12-29 03:00:00 Hi all,

I have a HP Elite 8200 SFF desktop with the following specs .



Intel i7 2600 @ 3 . 4GHz
14GB DDR3 RAM
Intel 82579LM Gb ethernet onboard NIC
ATi Radeon HD 3460
1 x 250GB disk
1 x 500GB disk
1 x 1TB USB external disk
Windows Server 2008 R2



I am currently running a nested vSphere 5 environment on this box using VMware Workstation 8 . 0 .

Due to the config I am only able to run 32 bit nested VM's from the 2 ESXi hosts I have created, this is mainly due to the fact that I (for some strange reason) am unable to install ESXi directly on the box because the ESXi installer says it cannot find a NIC .

I have tried installing various external NIC's (3Com, Intel, Netcomm and Realtek adapters) but the machine does not post at all when any of these cards are installed in the PCI slot . All these cards work fine in another machine without issue? I even disabled the onboard NIC leaving just the external cards in place but still ESXi refused to pick up the card . All the cards are on the HCL for ESXi .

Removing the card, allows the machine to post and then boot without issue .

So my question is . . . Has anyone come across this issue? Were you able to resolve the issue and finally how did you resolve it .

I am really keen to get this working as it would be easier to run ESXi directly in the machine and then create further nested ESXi hosts from there .

Thanks in advance for your replies .

Cheers, 		chiefnz (545)
1251079 2011-12-29 03:16:00 This sound like your prob?? (communities.vmware.com) This may fix it (kb.vmware.com) Speedy Gonzales (78)
1251080 2011-12-29 03:35:00 Thanks Speedy, but Wow that's over my head. Only just finished the vSphere 5 course and my CLi knowledge is non-existent at best. Will look into it though.

Cheers, 		chiefnz (545)
1251081 2011-12-29 03:57:00 Had the same issue when installing ESXi at work. Found out that ESXi doesnt really like a lot of network cards for some reason. So had to buy a Intel® PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter and it worked without any issues. ronyville (10611)
1251082 2011-12-29 09:04:00 Yeah ronyville is right, it's pretty damn picky! At work we initially went with Hyper-V as a 'workaround' because the RAID cards in some of the servers we had weren't supported. In hindsight I'd personally stick with VMWare the whole way, not a fan of Hyper-V personally, but anyway.... You not going to do any RAID?

So yes, you can get them going, we've done it with some cheaper hundred meg PCI cards working in tandem with the onboard gigabit, but not tried any gigabit PCI ones. We just got in 30 of those 8200 Elite SFF boxes at work, nice wee machines, good price too! :D 		Chilling_Silence (9)
1251083 2011-12-30 20:49:00 Thanks guys,

I am setting this up to prepare for my VCP5 exam in a few weeks so at this stage I'm not too concerned with RAID etc. I would like the added benefit of a second NIC to run the IP Storage on. I have installed FreeNAS as a VM which will act as SCSI storage to the ESX hosts. Works a treat and I have managed to get HA and DRS working fine. Playing around with vSphere Update Manager at present. With any luck if I pass my exam I'm going to ditch my mammoth server tower in favour of the ESX installation on the 8200.

If anyone has tips for the VCP5 exam please drop me a PM or post in this thread.

Cheers, 		chiefnz (545)
1251084 2011-12-31 00:09:00 SUCCESS!!! Well partially, I found this (www.ivobeerens.nl) really handy link which makes use of a tool called VMware Customiser that allows you to inject the desired ESXi driver into the ESXi installer ISO. It also provided me with the driver I needed for the onboard NIC I'm using. Pretty straight forward to use and creates a new custom ISO based on the original ESXi 5.0 disk I had.

Next step is to install an additional NIC and then see if I can update the driver using vSphere Update Manager.

Quite happy with the result as now I can use the full potential of hardware acceleration.

Will post back with progress on the 2nd NIC install.

Thanks again guys. 		chiefnz (545)
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