esxi 6.0 drops support for dell C1100/C2100 NOOOOOOOOOO!!

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chune

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Oct 28, 2013
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looks like the dirt-cheap datacenter days are coming to an end. Tried out the new vsphere 6.0 on a c1100 and was greeted with this nice PSOD:

It happens right when it starts to load ACPI. The only workaround is to disable vt-d which is pretty depressing... especially for those of us with AIO boxes that rely on pci passthrough. To rule out any faulty hardware i also tried this on another c1100 and cs24-ty (DCS model) with the exact same PSOD. It looks like a targeted attack at the dell servers, since my supermicro X8DTH-6F is running 6.0 just fine. I know these cloudedge servers have been off the HCL since 5.1, but it seems like vmware has gone out of their way to make sure these servers are severely crippled if you choose to run vsphere 6.0... weak

EDIT: confirmed c2100 has the same PSOD. Ill test on my hacky-c6100 node tomorrow
 
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T_Minus

T_Minus

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Are these in use a lot for DIY/home?

As long as my SM stuff continues to work I'll be happy camper.
 
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chinesestunna

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What improvement does 6.0 bring about vs 5.5? While it does suck I have just upgraded to 5.5 from 5.0 and given my limited use case I think even 5.0 would've been fine as is
 
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chune

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chinesestunna said:
What improvement does 6.0 bring about vs 5.5? While it does suck I have just upgraded to 5.5 from 5.0 and given my limited use case I think even 5.0 would've been fine as is
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VSAN, VGPU (finally), and NFS 4.1 support to name a few. The one i am actually testing with now is VGPU and thats only going to work on more modern LGA2011 systems anyways, but its nice having all of your servers at the same esxi version.
 
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T_Minus

T_Minus

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chune said:
VSAN, VGPU (finally), and NFS 4.1 support to name a few. The one i am actually testing with now is VGPU and thats only going to work on more modern LGA2011 systems anyways, but its nice having all of your servers at the same esxi version.
Click to expand...
Share your experience with VGPU in other thread please :)
 
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RyC

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Oct 17, 2013
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Uh oh I have a C1100 and was planning on upgrading to 6.0. Hopefully this is a wider bug that may be fixed.
 
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RyC

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Good news! I just had to try this myself, and although I'm not ready to upgrade to 6.0 yet, I loaded 6.0 onto a spare USB drive and it seems 6.0 is working on my C1100 with VT-d. The Installer ran fine, and then it booted up without running into a PSOD (VT-d still enabled in the BIOS). Then I enabled the M1015 installed for passthrough in the vSphere client. So far so good, (after rebooting) I added the M1015 to a napp-it OmniOS VM and started it up. The pool showed up and everything looked normal in napp-it. I couldn't try booting up any VMs (didn't have time to set up vSwitches etc), but I think if it got to this point, it's a pretty good indicator that VT-d works.

The BIOS on my C1100 is 3B23 (I think it's the latest on the Dell site). When I bought it off eBay, it was 3A16. What are the BIOS versions on your C1100/C2100?

Here's a screenshot of the vSphere client:
 
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RyC

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Fresh install. But I will upgrade the current USB drive from 5.5U2 when I'm ready to move to 6.0. Hopefully it won't crash in that scenario either. Interesting that you're on the latest BIOS and it's not working... I wonder what other variables there could be?
 
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chune

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Oct 28, 2013
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It's gotta be the lsi 1068e mezz card then. But it's on the HCL... Hmm I will have to do more fiddling this weekend
 
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chune

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chune said:
It's gotta be the lsi 1068e mezz card then. But it's on the HCL... Hmm I will have to do more fiddling this weekend
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pulled all pci-e cards and mezz card out and installed from a USB stick instead of BMC this time and still got the same PSOD. Mine all say C1100 in the bios and vmware not cs24-ty. Ill have to try one of my DCS boxes again without any cards in it. Something weird is going on here...
 
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RyC

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Hmm yeah you have a real C1100 while I (and probably most of the people who bought them off eBay) have a DCS C1100. I used the real C1100 BIOS off of Dell's website though. Not sure what it could be then o_O
 
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chune

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RyC said:
Hmm yeah you have a real C1100 while I (and probably most of the people who bought them off eBay) have a DCS C1100. I used the real C1100 BIOS off of Dell's website though. Not sure what it could be then o_O
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oh wow, i thought crossflashing dell to DCS bios was the recipe for bricks?
 
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chune

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You were right! FS12-TY worked without a hitch, but c2100 PSODs. I had mixed up the motherboards on my C2100s and wrongfully thought i had tested a fs12-ty when it was really just another c2100. So thats good news for most people (including myself) I only have 3 c1100s i need to buy boards for now. Any chance people have been successful crossflashing a c1100/CS24-TY bios to a c2100/FS12-TY?
 
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bee

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chune said:
You were right! FS12-TY worked without a hitch, but c2100 PSODs. I had mixed up the motherboards on my C2100s and wrongfully thought i had tested a fs12-ty when it was really just another c2100. So thats good news for most people (including myself) I only have 3 c1100s i need to buy boards for now. Any chance people have been successful crossflashing a c1100/CS24-TY bios to a c2100/FS12-TY?
Click to expand...
Great thread. I thought I'd add that I attempted to use VUM from a vcva6.0 to update a c1100 from 5.5 and it failed. Took awhile to time out with a generic error. Attempting it on an R610 (supported for 6.0) shortly.
 
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chune

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So it looks like i solved the issue with the c2100s, however i still cannot get a c1100 to boot 6.0 with vt-d for the life of me. I have tried 3 different C1100/CS24-ty boards and am still getting the same PSOD. I would be really interested to know the part # of the board you have working with vt-d RyC!
 
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