PSOD Trying to install ESXi on EPYC 7002

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IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
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Has anyone seen anything like this before? I get this screen just loading the install ISO before I even choose any install options. I've done extensive memory tests over 48 hours with no errors and have eliminated any other add-on devices from being an issue.




EDIT: It looks like 6.7 Update 3 is the issue. 6.7 Update 2 installs fine.
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Yup this is the infamous issue with RDRAND on the Ryzen 2 chips - Epyc's also affected. Giveaway is the top line saying the hardware RNG is giving bogus data; essential when queried via RDRAND for a random number, the CPU always returns 0xFFFFFFFF.

I don't have any direct experience with VMware on Epyc yet (company would prefer the six month lead time on Intel servers than dirty itself with filthy communist AMD chips) but you'll basically be waiting on a BIOS featuring the new AGESA microcode to fix the bug, or see if VMware have made an installer that works around it yet.
 
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schujj07

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May 10, 2018
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Has anyone seen anything like this before? I get this screen just loading the install ISO before I even choose any install options. I've done extensive memory tests over 48 hours with no errors and have eliminated any other add-on devices from being an issue.




EDIT: It looks like 6.7 Update 3 is the issue. 6.7 Update 2 installs fine.
6.7 U2 do not have support for 7002 series, you need 6.7 U3 for that. What you probably need is a BIOS update for your host. I had that issue in late October installing 6.7 U3 onto my company's new SuperMicro AS-2124BT-HTR. I had to contact SuperMicro and get a release candidate BIOS and once I had that the install went just fine.
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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6.7 U2 do not have support for 7002 series, you need 6.7 U3 for that. What you probably need is a BIOS update for your host. I had that issue in late October installing 6.7 U3 onto my company's new SuperMicro AS-2124BT-HTR. I had to contact SuperMicro and get a release candidate BIOS and once I had that the install went just fine.
I assume you wrote that backwards as U3 doens't work but U2 does.
 

IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
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No I didn't write that backwards. For official VMware support of Epyc 7002 you need to be running 6.7 U3 or 6.5 U3. VMware Compatibility Guide - cpu
While it might work on 6.7 U2, if you were to run into an issue you would not be able to get support from VMware with it running on 6.7 U2.
Well the PSOD screen I got was from just trying to install U3 so I guess AsRock has not released a BIOS update to support it.
 

cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
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So far I haven't had any issues running 6.7U3 on R6515's with 7702p cpu's on them, though I am using the Dell custom image.