VM Guests hang on power on or restart on local datastore on ESXi 6 and Proliant DL380 G9 server

[HarborLights]

I have two Proliant servers both DL380 Gen 9 brand new, dual 6 core proc and 128GB ram, 1 dual port 10G NIC

The two Proliants have raid 1 local hard disk SAS 15k drives. Connected to the HP 10G NICs is an HP MSA 2040 SAN dual controller. Each NIC goes to Controller A and B.

I installed the latest supported HP Branded VMWare ISO Image ESXi Build 2494585 to both Proliant servers.

I have the SAN configured for iSCSI over 10G for both servers and can see and browse the datastores.

VM Guest Operating Systems Used:

Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter

Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter

Issues Experienced:

Originally I had the SAN 10G NIC's and the Server 10G NICs in two 10G switches but I would get the guest OS's freezing on restart after installation. Or if I powered it off because it froze on restart, it hangs at the splash screen.

Troubleshooting attempts:

1. Called HP SAN Support - I sent them the logs of the SAN, they said everything was fine to call HP Server Support.

2. Called HP Server Support - Sent them logs - they said everything is fine to call VMware.

3. Last week I removed the server and SAN 10G nic's from the switch and went direct attached to the SAN from the server. I have the NIC from each server going to both controllers for redundancy.

4. Attempted to install a new VM on the servers local hard disks datastore. IT also freezes on restart. 

5. Tried a couple kb articles with some configuration changes. 2092807 and 2082042 neither worked.

6. I also tried fine tuning the BIOS from this link. http://www.running-system.com/bios-settings-hp-dl380-gen9-for-vsphere-esxi-5-5/

None of this worked. I'm stumped on this one. Any ideas and thoughts are welcomed... I'm going to call VMWare support now, but nothing is better than those who have perhaps experienced it.

Thank you!!

Fred