ASRock, Bryce, and fkhsr team up across continents and deliver quite the Z77 VT-d/VMDirectPath article and test matrix, thank you!
If you are keen on shopping for a Z77 motherboard, and really have your heart set on VMDirectPath, then this article is for you!
Be sure not to miss the the Google Doc that Bryce has created, this thing is a masterpiece, Z77 ESXi 5 Board Matrix
It goes way more in depth than my original, July 2011 spreadsheet about Z68 VMDirectPath successes and failures at TinkerTry.com/vmdirectpath, and related article TinkerTry.com/sandybridgeversusivybridge.
VT-d capability is handy for when you'd like to be able to "pin" current and future PCI devices to a particular VM, side-stepping devices that the hypervisor itself doesn't support. Such as assigning HighPoint USB 3.0 card ports to a Windows VM, which works great with tinkertry.com/vzilla for example. Or perhaps a Thunderbolt card, assuming they ever become affordable.
Below is a reformatted, but unedited, forum-like dialogue between site visitor Bryce and fkhsr, pulled from the active Disqus comments below this popular (13,000 views) TinkerTry.com/sandybridgeversusivybridge article. Enjoy!
Bryce (US) April 25 2012 6:00pm eastern:
I'm looking to replicate your ASRock Z68 build on Z77. However, according the manual the ASRock Z77 Professional board no longer includes the option to enable VT-d in the Advanced North Bridge Sections. Other than the upgraded Intel chip set its very similar to your Z68 board, which means it offers good Ethernet and SATA compatibly with ESXi 5. I have an inquiry out to ASRock to see if the feature is truly gone.
Bryce (US) April 26 2012 6:50pm eastern:
I've been compiling a spreadsheet of some high end Z77 boards. Here is what I have so far. If you or anyone would like to contribute I think it would be a valuable resource. For each board in question I've been thru manuals or found speficications. I'll update links in the the spreadsheet comments.
http://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjymuQhfM0vYdHZtNThGSllMeU1SMU9ldVltUmp4NWc
fkhsr (France) April 26 2012 8:38pm eastern:
Thanks so much for the testing, I'm kind of in the same situation as Bryce (looking to replicate your setup on Z77, for gaming and other stuff) ; i have been searching quite a while to find out that manufacturers don't communicate that much about it..
So I decided to send a mail to ASRock (asking about status for the support of VT-d on Z77 MBs) and here's (a snippet of) there answer :
Dear customer,
[...already known stuff preceeding...]
Last but not least it is maybe best to also ask Intel if the Z77 chipset does support VT-D. I found that the Z77 Extreme6, Z77 Extreme4 and Z77 Pro4 all have an option in the BIOS for Intel virtualization Technology (VMM) based on the Vanderpool protocol.
Last but not least it is maybe best to also ask Intel if the Z77 chipset does support VT-D.
I found that the Z77 Extreme6, Z77 Extreme4 and Z77 Pro4 all have an option in the BIOS for Intel virtualization Technology (VMM) based on the Vanderpool protocol.
Please give me some feedback, and let me know if I can be of assistanceKind regards/ mit freundlichen Gruessen,ASRock Support
So maybe if we all spam Intel about this they will do something (kiding.. or not) ? I really wouldn't like to be forced to buy current gen-1 MB just because of this..What do you think about this guys ? And here a screenshot of the asrock z77 extreme6 UEFI :
Bryce (US) April 27 2012 12:14am eastern:
Intel is supporting VT-d on their flagship Z77 board, the DZ77GA-70K. http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-030922.htm If you have an open line of communication with ASRock refer them to this link.
Bryce (US) May 3 2012 12:28pm eastern:
I've finally gotten a ASRock rep to confirm support. The Z77 Professional Manual will be updated to include VT-d Support.
forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/48417-fatal1ty-z77-professional-vt-d-support.html
Moderator (US) May 3 2012 8:04pm eastern:
footnote, from above site, important to note
The quad core K models do NOT support SIPP, vPro, VT-d and TXTSounds similar to 2600 versus 2600k issue, no? Discussed at _Best affordable Intel CPU to buy for your personal virtualization project, Core i7 2600, not the 2600K! article._
See also the original source of this tip:
www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-bridge-core-i7-3770k-review/2Best affordable Intel CPU to buy for your personal virtualization project, Core i7 2600, not the 2600K!
fkhsr (France) May 5 2012 2:47pm eastern:
Sorry for the delay, I've just passed this info onto asrock support in Netherlands (maybe tinkererguy passed it onto ASRock US and they may not have shared the info).
Anyway I'l keep an eye on the web to find new info (especially at TinkerTry.com ;) ) and keep you informed if I find some info I think is relevant to us.
Anyway one thing is sure : I'll be ready to build my rig on july this year ; hopefully more info is available till then.Thanks.
first.last (US) May 5 2012 8:48pm eastern:
I got the same information from ASRock tech support as Bryce regarding the Z77 Professional board supporting VT-d. Based on the email chain I had with them, it appears ASRock U.S. passed the question on to ASRock Taiwan, which responded with the following:
Dear Xxxxx,Thanks for your reply. There is an option of "Vt-d" in Z77 Professional BIOS.Z77 Professional user manual don't mention the option, we are modifying the user manual. If any question, please kindly contact us.Thanks for your e-mail. Have a nice dayASRock TSD
Bryce (US) May 21 2012 12:53pm eastern:
Hi folks,
Have recently finished building my own ASRock Z77 Extreme4 with LSI MegaRAID 2965 SAS controller (including CacheCade 2.0) thanks to the great advice on this site. I actually ended up building my own ESXi install image with all the drivers I needed in it and thought this might be useful to others so have included my notes on using VMware PowerCLI to build a custom install ISO from the latest ESXi release including security updates below.
Note after downloading the extra ESXi drivers I had unziped them to my working directory.
Note: the set of Get-ESXImageProfile commands is just to narrow down the latest release - probably a better way but it works :-)Source: http://alexander.walden.com.au/2012/01/18/making-your-own-esxi-5-installation-image/
Download ESXi 5 drivers from LSI and from VMWare.
(VMWare.com – Support and Downloads (Hover) – Product
Downloads – Vmware vSphere – Drivers and Tools Tab – Expand Driver CDs - VMware
ESXi 5.0 Driver CD for Broadcom NetXtreme I Gigabit Ethernet Driver -
3.120h.v50.2)
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot http://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot ..\tg3-3.120h.v50.2-547149\tg3-3.120h.v50.2-offline_bundle-547149.zip
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot ..\VMW-ESX-5.0.0-LSIProvider-500.04.V0.24-261033-456178\VMW-ESX-5.0.0-LSIProvider-500.04.V0.24-261033-offline_bundle-456178.zip
Get-ESXImageProfile
Get-ESXImageProfile -name "ESXi-5.0.0-201205*"
Get-ESXImageProfile -name "ESXi-5.0.0-201205*"|format-list
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120504001-standard -Name ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
Set-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported
(Get-EsxImageProfile -Name ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom).VibList
Get-EsxSoftwarePackage
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -SoftwarePackage net-tg3
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -SoftwarePackage LSIProvider
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -ExportToBundle -FilePath " ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom.zip"
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -ExportToISO -FilePath "ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom.iso"
Compare-EsxImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20111204001-standard ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-CustomSep 15 2012 Update:
Here's a nice write-up on more Z77 success, and a little "shout-out" to TinkerTry that is greatly appreciated, where Kuonen says:
Inspired by vZilla on tinkertry.com
Read all the build details, see photos, and a lot of screenshots over at vEsuvio 4.0 – ivy bridge whitebox. Enjoy!
Jun 04 2013 Update:
Nice write-up on some speed testing of SSDs under Hyper-V, using the GA-Z77X-UD5H, over at:
Performance: Using SSD’s for VM Drives in Home Hyper-V Server on GA-Z77X-UD5H, June 3, 2013, by John Stutsman
All Comments on This Article (36)
Any news on support of Z87 boards? I have an ASRock Z87E-ITX that has a VT-D setting. Every PCI device except the onboard SATA controller appears in the list of devices able to be passed through.
Thank you so much for sharing the joy! (and for documenting that you're yet another user who has found ESXi 5.1 has broken VT-d stuff, that had worked under 5.0). Also good to hear MSI working better with VT-d now, since I didn't get the earlier Z68 board to work with VT-d, see http://tinkertry.com/vmdirectpath
I got myself a MSI Z77A G45, because I expect ESXi 5.0 to work with the onboard nic rightaway. And it did. But I could not get the VT-D passtru of the graphics card working. I thought that it was necessary for ESXi to show nice PCI id's instead of "unknown devices". But passthru of the Renesas /Nec USB3 cards was working ok.
So I waited for ESXI 5.1 to arrive before tinkering again with video passthru and vt-d.
I installed 5.1 right away and was happy to see all PCI id’s nicely resolved of my hardwaresetup. It recognizes all my Z77 onboard stuff, my AMD 6970 graphics, my AMD 6670 graphics, and the NEC based USB 3.0 addin cards with latest firmware from Renesas. I just could not get the USB3 passthru get to work again. Which
worked before! This turned out to be a well known problem. So after
some sobbing I tried ESXi 5.0 build 821926.
This works! I7-3770 (nonK) with MSI Z77A G45 with bios version 2.60 and turned-off
build-in video and audio. Right now I have USB 3.0 connected sound and a
keyboard/mouse combo.
AMD video driver 12.10 in a Win7-64 2 GB memory VM. And autostart works out of the box. I removed one graphicscard, so only 6970 graphics right now.
So I'm happy now!
This is incredibly detailed, helpful information, thank you so much for taking the time to post this!
I'm running an AsRock Z77 professional with ESX5.0 Update 1 and can confirm that VT-d works.
Im using an LSI 9260 with RAID10 (& CacheCade2 with 240GB SSD) for my VM datastore, and have successfully passed through a second LSI card (IBM 1015) to a VM guest.
I have also passed through 2 different TDM400/410 FXO/FXS cards (PCI and PCI-e) VOIP cards to a guest VM running Asterisk.
I have managed to get all MB onboard SATA ports working with ESX, however performance as a datastore seems to be dismal. I have successfully configured raw mapping of an ESX managed SATA drive off the Marvel controller through to a guest VM.
I have managed to pass through 4 USB soundcard sticks off of 1 USB 2 port through to 4 different VM guests.
I have experienced issues with the onboard broadcom 2xNICs - no traffic in or out despite ESX identifying them and showing as up. I fixed this by using a quad port Intel NIC instead.
I too have experienced issues with network configs not 'sticking' after reboots - I think I have narrowed this down to using a USB3 instead of a USB2 port for my boot USB stick. Since moving the boot USB stick to a USB2 port, I haven't had any further loss of configuration.
Regards
David - Australia
Andrew, thank you for this very helpful information.
It would be great to have access to all the major Z77 motherboards at once (kind of like I did last summer with 4 Z68 motherboards), to build a matrix to determine ESX 5.1 (when released) compatibility. But that'd be rather cost prohibitive, and these consumer motherboard makers don't seem particularly keen on advertising their ESXi capabilities, for whatever reason.
One notable exception was the CES booth staffer for Highpoint, she genuinely cared that their USB 3 controller worked under ESXi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tredL4lxcpE
I'm using the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H with BIOS version F8 and VT-d is working for my 2 Adaptec 2805 RAID controllers. I'm trying to get it to work with the built-in Marvell SATA controller and I have only been able to get 2 of the 4 ports working. The rear panel eSATA and one the lone grey internal does not work. The Marvell on PCI bus 04:00.0 will show up and allows me to boot but the one on 08:00.0 when added to the VM does not allow the VM to boot. Intel NIC works with the hack noted in the spreadsheet.
Wow, strange, but very interesting. Thank you Brandon for sharing the good news, glad I could help spread the word for ASRock Z77 Extreme6 owners out there!
Okay, I have some resolution here, which is pointing to a USB issue. As stated below by TheLG, the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 can be added to the matrix, both onboard SATA and NIC work, only catch is with ESXi5 update 1, you'll have to extract the Broadcom BCM57781 drivers and update the package with ESXi Customizer. On the installation front, what I was trying to accomplish was to install ESXi 5 to USB stick. I tried every configuration of installation to USB 2/3 (front/back) in USB and UEFI mode. No matter which way, it always wiped the NIC settings whether it was a supported Intel Pro 1000 or the onboard Broadcom. Something funny when shutdown/restarted, it would wipe the NIC settings. Fix/solution was to install to a SATA HDD, up and running fine with everything. I'm converting VM's as i'm writing this, like you said, hopefully it will be fixed/updated with 5.1.
I'm hoping somebody else who has the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 can chime in here? I do not have any ideas to share, other than crossing fingers that your behavior goes away once ESXi 5.1 finally arrives. I also had various networking issues with motherboard NICs back when trying out various Z68 motherboards back in April and May of 2011, and nothing surprises me any more. At least there's always the option of going with a different gigabit NIC that is on VMware's HCL, if you get desperate or impatient enough.
Thanks for this, it really helped me out, but I’m having a problem. I used the steps in the link below to compile ESXi 5 Update 1, with the latest drivers from VMware, When I installed ESXi 5, the onboard NIC connected and gathered a DHCP address right away. I can reconfigure static, ping, manage, and even convert VM’s to it. Problem is, when I reboot, it wipes the NIC settings back to blank, and I have to manually re-enter them???
One caveat is that I’m using the ‘ASRock Z77 Extreme6’ (NOT 4), but it still has the same BCM57781. Thoughts or any help?
http://loadingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/the-broadcom-bcm57781-asrock-z77-extreme-4-and-you/
Excellent news, thank you!
Can add the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 on this matrix , i don't use VMWare ESXi but i have VT-d working using qemu-kvm passing a ATI HD 5770 to a Windows 7 VM.
@Stephen - are you using the VMXNET3 drivers in the guest VMs? (i.e. have VM tools installed and reconfigured NIC)
After doing many more transfer tests the final verdict appears to be that the stable speed is about 25-30MB/second. I decided to run another physical hardware test and used my laptop (T420 i5, 8GB, 120GB Vertex2 SSD, WS2008R2) and was suprised to see that it pullled the same data file at a rock solid 106MB/sec. Either the Intel NIC or the OS made a big difference over my desktop (Sabertooth x58 i7 950, 8GB, 80GB X25m SSD, W7).
So, I know that ESXi can push data from a Linux VM to the physical network at blazing speeds. The big problem is that I need to move the data off the drives the Linux VM is using and want to put them on my FreeNAS VM. I may have to switch over and try my hand at either Hyper-V or run Xen on OpenSuse 12.1 until vSphere 5.1 comes along.
Well I know that you need the tg3 driver. However how you end up joining that into the package, I have no idea. With the 5.0u1 iso it recognizes the nic but I can't send / receive data on it.
Update for your very handy matrix: anti-t over here: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/33730-VT-d-enabled-motherboards-and-CPUs-for-Paravirtualization has got VT-d working with an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 mobo.
Wow, that is strange, hoping somebody Googles your Z77 story and chimes in with advice on this one. It'd be interesting to see if ESXi 5.1 fixes this, and what others have to say about VM to VM performance being slow.
Hope this sort of strangeness goes away with ESX 5.1 someday (perhaps better BCM57781 support). Odd story, but thank you so much for sharing!
I've been running my ESXi 5 instance for about a week but have one significant issue. VM to VM networking is horrible. My problem is as follows: I have a linux VM with a RDM drive and a 10GB test file using Samba to expose the files to the network. If I use my desktop connected through my HP Procurve switch I can pull the file down at between 80 and 90MB/sec. If I go to a Windows VM on the same port group as the Linux VM, it starts out super fast (200MB/sec) but within a 20 seconds drops to 50MB/sec and then continues to slowly drop.
Any ideas?
I'm sorry, my focus has been on ESXi 5.0 all along, haven't tried Xen on this system.
Hi folks,
Have recently finished building my own ASRock Z77 Extreme4 with LSI MegaRAID 2965 SAS controller (including CacheCade 2.0) thanks to the great advice on this site. I actually ended up building my own ESXi install image with all the drivers I needed in it and thought this might be useful to others so have included my notes on using VMware PowerCLI to build a custom install ISO from the latest ESXi release including security updates below. Note after downloading the extra ESXi drivers I had unziped them to my working directory.
Note: the set of Get-ESXImageProfile commands is just to narrow down the latest release - probably a better way but it works :-)
Source: http://alexander.walden.com.au/2012/01/18/making-your-own-esxi-5-installation-image/
Download ESXi 5 drivers from LSI and from VMWare.
(VMWare.com – Support and Downloads (Hover) – Product
Downloads – Vmware vSphere – Drivers and Tools Tab – Expand Driver CDs - VMware
ESXi 5.0 Driver CD for Broadcom NetXtreme I Gigabit Ethernet Driver -
3.120h.v50.2)
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot ..\tg3-3.120h.v50.2-547149\tg3-3.120h.v50.2-offline_bundle-547149.zip
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot ..\VMW-ESX-5.0.0-LSIProvider-500.04.V0.24-261033-456178\VMW-ESX-5.0.0-LSIProvider-500.04.V0.24-261033-offline_bundle-456178.zip
Get-ESXImageProfile
Get-ESXImageProfile -name "ESXi-5.0.0-201205*"
Get-ESXImageProfile -name "ESXi-5.0.0-201205*"|format-list
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120504001-standard -Name ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
Set-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
-AcceptanceLevel CommunitySupported
(Get-EsxImageProfile -Name ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom).VibList
Get-EsxSoftwarePackage
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
-SoftwarePackage net-tg3
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
-SoftwarePackage LSIProvider
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
-ExportToBundle -FilePath " ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom.zip"
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom -ExportToISO
-FilePath "ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom.iso"
Compare-EsxImageProfile ESXi-5.0.0-20111204001-standard ESXi-5.0.0-20120511001-Custom
I received an Asrock Z77 Extreme6 a couple of days ago and can confirm that vt-d does work. In fact using vt-d was the only way I could get the onboard NIC (BCM57781) to work and retrieve a DHCP address. I installed V5 Update 1 which according to the matrix should be supported. Ended up just adding a spare Intel CT Desktop adapter which works perfectly.
I encountered one other issue with the board, when I attached some Seagate 3TB sata3 drives to the Intel controller ports the system wouldn't boot off the Intel sata2 ports. The board came with P1.20 bios, after upgrading to P1.50 the boot problem was resolved.
Hi all
I'll get my Asrock Z77 extreme 4 in a few days, then I'll test VT-d with Esxi.Thanks for the spreadsheet, very useful !
For thoses interested, I've also created a thread here :
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/33730-VT-d-enabled-motherboards-and-CPUs-for-Paravirtualization
If there's anyone out there who can confirm VT-d support (ideally through ESXi 5) on any recent micro-ATX boards, I would greatly appreciate it.
I'm on the verge of purchasing an ASRock Q77M vPRO (http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Q77M%20vPro&cat=Specifications), but I've read a fair amount of skepticism (e.g., http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688360&page=12) about ASRock's claims of VT-d compatibility.
I'm trying my best to do my homework before I spend any money, but I'm finding it impossible to locate any solid information about the current motherboard offerings. Other boards I'm considering:
ASUS P8Q77-M (http://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/buy-rent/P8Q77-M+S1155+Q77+MATX+VGA%2BSND%2BGLN%2BU3+SATA+6GB-S+DDR3/P137457P?from=category&heat=btn - appears to not be released yet)
ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M (http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z77%20Extreme4-M - the manual for the ATX variant mentions VT-d support, and others have reported success with it)
GIGABYTE GA-Z77MX-D3H (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4145#sp - VT-d support currently appears to be a beta BIOS option only, which is reportedly, and expectedly, buggy, but at least they're working on it)
I can confirm that VT-d works with the ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard but there is no way to update the matrix above. Currently, I'm passing through an IBM ServeRAID M1015 and an ancient Creative SoundBlaster card to a Windows 7 VM.
I also wrote up instructions on how to get onboard Broadcom BCM57781 NIC working if anyone was interested: http://loadingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/the-broadcom-bcm57781-asrock-z77-extreme-4-and-you/
I ended up figuring it out. Thanks for all your help
Thanks for your help. In that thread someone says that you can download individual drivers from rollup 2, and then someone else replies that they tried it and it worked. My problem is that, for the life of me, I can't see how to download the drivers individually on the website, and in that thread they don't provide instructions on how to accomplish this.
Also, a user on this site named Casey Delorme posted a comment on http://tinkertry.com/vsphere5-install-step-by-step/
Saying that he/she got it working from downloading the drivers individually from the driver rollup 2 as well, and then integrating the individual drivers into the install iso using Esxi Customizer. But, again he gives no instructions lol. He only says that another user 'MitzaDave' gave perfect instructions on how to accomplish this on another page on this site, but provides no link, and I can't find it ... lol.
It's slim pickens on the web about this stuff and atm I happen to be lost.
Thanks for your help. In that thread someone says that you can download individual drivers from rollup 2, and then someone else replies that they tried it and it worked. My problem is that, for the life of me, I can't see how to download the drivers individually on the website, and in that thread they don't provide instructions on how to accomplish this.
Also, a user on this site named Casey Delorme posted a comment on http://tinkertry.com/vsphere5-install-step-by-step/
Saying that he/she got it working from downloading the drivers individually from the driver rollup 2 as well, and then integrating the individual drivers into the install iso using Esxi Customizer. But, again he gives no instructions lol. He only says that another user 'MitzaDave' gave perfect instructions on how to accomplish this on another page on this site, but provides no link, and I can't find it ... lol.
It's slim pickens on the web about this stuff and atm I happen to be lost.
Found this thread referencing getting the BCM57781 to work with ESXi 5:
http://communities.vmware.com/message/2008482
I haven't gotten my Z77 Professional board yet, so I haven't tried it, but I'm certainly going to give it a shot. I'd be interested in hearing how it works out for you.
2 long months ago, I wrote this comment
http://tinkertry.com/commentspreferredoveremail/#comment-438973269
which said:
You're right, doesn't look promising, checking in on the VMware HCL here:http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=io Matches something I wrote in May 2011 here:http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2261-what-about-building-whs2011-box-with-z68-motherboard-like-asus-p8z68-v-pro-at-300-with-intel-core-i7-2600s-65-watts-300/page__st__40 So it would seem there are better choices. Of course, it's possible ESXi 5.1 will have support built in for that Broadcom BCM57781 chip your board has:http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68%20Extreme4%20Gen3&cat=Specifications or this approach:http://virtualbill.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/vmware-vsphere-5using-image-builder-for-custom-installation/ or easier approach:http://v-front.blogspot.com/p/esxi-customizer.html but given I don't have that motherboard, I can't speak from first hand knowledge on this one. Keep in mind you mind find other quirks on boards that haven't been well documented, for ESXi 5.0 support.If you're interested in a known-good system where I can answer questions a lot better, consider using the http://tinkertry.com/vzilla parts list. Hope this helps!
but hoping somebody has something newer/first-hand, to add to this dialogue for you.
I am trying to install ESXi 5 on my ASRock z77 Professional board and am having trouble getting the Broadcom BCM57781 NIC to work. I read somewhere that you can download the individual drivers from the Rollup 2 download page from VMware, but I can't figure it out. Can anybody help me?
I got the same information from ASRock tech support as Bryce regarding the Z77 Professional board supporting VT-d. Based on the email chain I had with them, it appears ASRock U.S. passed the question on to ASRock Taiwan, which responded with the following:
Dear Xxxxx,Thanks for your reply. There is an option of "Vt-d" in Z77 Professional BIOS.Z77 Professional user manual don't mention the option, we are modifying the user manual. If any question, please kindly contact us.Thanks for your e-mail. Have a nice dayASRock TSD
Paul Braren | TinkerTry.com
Sorry, I just don't know/haven't reseached that lately.
I don't own a Z87, and couldn't see compelling reason to move from my trusty Z68 quite yet. See also:
http://www.tinkertry.com/32gb-boundary/
I'll be writing about the new release of ESXi due to be announced in two weeks, and will retest VMDirectPath again.