I'm having a strange problem with an Windows 2008 server (actually SBS2011) running on an ESXi 5.1 host. Every so often - I'd say about once every couple of weeks, the server stops responding with a bug check 0xd1 error. This is an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error indicating a driver problem. My issue is that I can't figure out how to determine what driver is causing the issue, and if the issue is a VMWare driver running on the VM, or a hardware driver on the host itself. The host hardware is a HP ProLiant ML350e G8 with 12GB of memory and 500GB of internal storage. I used an HP custom image to install ESXi. There is only the single VM on this host, and it is housed on the internal drive array. I am seeing some errors on the host related to hard drive performance of the following type:
Device
naa.600508b1001c620b13b959dcae75095f
performance has deteriorated. I/O latency
increased from average value of 7797
microseconds to 238784 microseconds.
warning
5/8/2013 7:31:52 PM
server.domain.local
I looked these up and it seems to be something that is both common and for which there isn't any known fix. These errors don't seem to be directly related to the freeze-ups either, as the timing isn't right, unless it's some kind of accumulation of latency issues and something else.
Not sure what other info might be helpful, but my customer is getting a bit annoyed at the frequent freezes causing them to cal us to restart the VM.