PCI Passthrough causing strange esxi stability problems

[ben0012000]

I just started using esxi (latest version) and am enjoying it so far, i just have a problem doing pci passthrough with a HVR-2250 hauppauge tuner card on a supermicro X8ST3-F board with VT-d enabled and the latest bios. I can select the tuner for passthrough and configure a windows 7 vm (with vmware tools installed) to use it, boot up the vm and the tuner works fine. However if i shutdown the vm properly esxi is then very unstable, hanging 1-10 minutes afterwards. I was able to pull the logs off (attached), boot up the vm and log in before esxi hung, whereas sometimes esxi will hang immediately after shutting down the vm.

if instead of shutting down the guest properly i force power off the vm i can boot up the guest but the tuner will not function.

i tried passing through a sas controller and it works properly without causing any esxi stability problems.

I realize that since this tuner is not on the HCL that i might simply be out of luck but it would be nice if this was working properly. Does anyone have some tips for me or experiencing similar problems?

[marcelo_soares]

I had similar cases with PCI devices that are not HBA's or NIC's. My last call with a VMware Support representative they said to me that only HBA's and NIC's are supportet for pass through, although I could not find this information on any doc or KB.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[ben0012000]

well at least i am not alone then.

I also have a PERC 4e/DC (on the HCL list) but is not working as expected. I was hoping to do scsi passthrough with a tape drive but i did some reading and it seems that perhaps only adaptec cards can do this? so i tried pci passthrough but the scsi controller does not work properly in the guest (tried an opensolaris guest, server 2003, windows 7). the drivers load but the tape device does not show up. megaraid utility does not pick up the scsi card to try and force a bus scan, the same utility does work when the same server is running server 2003 natively.

I have attached a screenshot of the passthrough device list. I am wondering if this device is having problems due to the 03:00.0 device (Dobson I/O processor)

Passthrough does work fine on the LSI1068e sas controller so vt-d must be working properly.

[daboss]

Hi,

Did you manage to solve this problem? Having the same problem with a HVR-2200..

Thanks

DM

[DSTAVERT]

Video cards are not supported for passthrough.