Hello,
I have a Dell R730 with the standard Intel card with 2 x GB Ethernet and 2x SFP+ ports. I have used only the ethernet ports with ESXI for a few years but now I was in need for higher bandwidth.
When no fiber link is up, strangely, I can see the 2 SFP+ ports in down state in the virtual switch. The second I connect the patch cord and the link goes up, it disappear from the virtual switch.
- The 2 SFP+ ports show as UP and enabled in the Dell's iDrac but there a mention saying that they are not handled by the OS drivers.
- The 2 SFP+ ports are also visible in the hardware screen of the GUI and also using the "lspci -v | grep -A1 -i ethernet" command of the CLI
- They are not however listed using the "esxcli network nic list"
- Following this KB article, I upgraded the ixgben drivers to 1.89 from 1.71 with no success: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1034782
- There's a similar threads that I've read here with not additional information that I can use so far.
- I also updated ESXi from 7.01 to 7.03 'just to see' with no success.
- I connected each port, then both and also tried swaping SPF module (from Dell and Finisar) but again, even if the link(s) are UP, ESXI doesn't present those NICs even if they are visible in the hardware section of the GUI.
- I also tried a few settings in the server's BIOS just to see with no success.
- Obviously, I checked to make sure that passtrough and SR-IOV are both disabled. I'm also able to toggle these settings with no apparent errors that I can see.
I must admit that I'm at a loss but I feel it's something stupid that I'm missing. Have you ever encountered a similar situation ?
Thanks in advance.