Freenas 11 and Vmware issues since cpu upgrade to xeon.

[djkus]

Hi guys, up until 2 days ago I was able to run vmware on my FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1
Im running on a Hp Proliant microserver gen 8 with 16gb ram and 4 3tb drives.

I upgraded the cpu from the stock Celeron g1610t cpu to a Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1265L V2 @ 2.50GHz (8 cores) with the intention of speeding up my Plex transcoding and hoping to run some virtual machines.


Since I installed the new cpu I have been unable to get the vm to run.

I have spent about 15 hours on this issue, trying various bios settings, default bios settings, checking to ensure its got the vtx in terminal showing etc.

Even got a new usb drive and done a fresh install of freenas 11.2 from their web site, same thing happens..

When I boot vmware it just goes straight to the uefi interactive shell.

Ive googled this issue and I cant just point it at the efi file as it wont let me access the drives.

It is almost as if the uefi cant access the cd image or hard drive file.
Ive tried installing new virtual machines, various windows and ubuntu disk images, nothing boots and just goes stright to the uefi interactive shell, ive tried uefi legacy which makes no difference.


If anyone can shed some light on this it would be so much appreciated for my own sanity and my wifes ears from hearing me moan about this..


Thanks so much for reading.

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to resolve this?

 

[Digitaldreams]

Hi guys, up until 2 days ago I was able to run vmware on my FreeNAS-11.2-RELEASE-U1
Im running on a Hp Proliant microserver gen 8 with 16gb ram and 4 3tb drives.

I upgraded the cpu from the stock Celeron g1610t cpu to a Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1265L V2 @ 2.50GHz (8 cores) with the intention of speeding up my Plex transcoding and hoping to run some virtual machines.


Since I installed the new cpu I have been unable to get the vm to run.

I have spent about 15 hours on this issue, trying various bios settings, default bios settings, checking to ensure its got the vtx in terminal showing etc.

Even got a new usb drive and done a fresh install of freenas 11.2 from their web site, same thing happens..

When I boot vmware it just goes straight to the uefi interactive shell.

I've googled this issue and I can't just point it at the efi file as it won't let me access the drives.

It is almost as if the uefi can't access the cd image or hard drive file.
I've tried installing new virtual machines, various windows and ubuntu disk images, nothing boots and just goes stright to the uefi interactive shell, I've tried uefi legacy which makes no difference.


If anyone can shed some light on this it would be so much appreciated for my own sanity and my wifes ears from hearing me moan about this..


Thanks so much for reading.

I had some issues when I upgraded my HPE ProLiant ML10 Generation9 from a Celeron to a Xeon chip. My issues didn't pertain to VM's or to a specific issue. Instead, my server just ran like garbage. It was noticeably slower and my Plex movies didn't play well. I also had some log spam which I'd have to do some digging in order to see what they were. Let me know if it would help you. I had read that I needed to ensure that the BIOS was updated and I believe I had done that. Although I had read other saying that they upgraded theirs and it ran like a champ, I never got mine to work right.

My fix ultimately was building a new custom server with a SuperMicro board. I don't think the HP liked the Xeon that much for reasons I never figured out.

Good luck with this. I lost a lot of hair working on it!

 

[djkus]

I must have spent about 15 hours on this issue. You can imagine the stress inducing problem! :D

I updated bios on the hp microserver gen 8 and still same issue.
The key thing that got it working for me was to DISABLE No execute memory protection, this allowed the VM to run parts of its code in an area of the chip that some viruses put themselfs into.

As soon as I did that the VM ran!

 

[Digitaldreams]

I must have spent about 15 hours on this issue. You can imagine the stress inducing problem! :D

I updated bios on the hp microserver gen 8 and still same issue.
The key thing that got it working for me was to DISABLE No execute memory protection, this allowed the VM to run parts of its code in an area of the chip that some viruses put themselfs into.

As soon as I did that the VM ran!

Where is this setting found?

 

[djkus]

Where is this setting found?

I was using a hp proliant microserver gen8 and it was in the bios settings.
https://techzone.ergon.ch/files/dl320-intel-vt-d.png

 

[wxlsxn]

Since upgrading from 11.1 U4 to 11.2 U1, I've had noticeable performance degradation in my Windows VM and Plex server. Everything feels more sluggish and the CPU on the VM tops out way to easily...