Flex-10 nics and ESXi DCC compatibility

[Aaronb]

I have contacted my reseller to see if it can be escalated to HP.

[bb4vm]

Now VMware has a KB, released 10/13.....

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1029368

[Aaronb]

Hi,
Thanks for the heads-up!

But I have confirmed with HP that this is not a workaround for the DCC issue we have.

I wish it was....

Aaron

[DerekS_1]

On a blog I saw a post from mid-September that v1.60 of the driver is supposed to be out "soon". Hopefully this fixes the DDC and PSOD problems. HP's in getting working drivers is really unacceptable.

[AaronK]

Yep, We have a ticket open with HP on this issue (mainly the PSODs in the 1.52). We backdated to 1.48 and are waiting on the 1.60. They are giving me a 'late October/early November' date for release. I'm pressing them on letting us get our hands on it to validate it early...

[bb4vm]

Have been following in a VMware forum thread too. Hearing the same thing about the new driver release. See here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1636595#1636595

[Aaronb]

A bit off topic but related to the bnx2x driver. I resently have a complete crash of the nic driver on an ESX 4.0U2 server (BL460c G6)
See the attachment. The explanation/screen cap was for management to understand.. not tech people...

It was a fist for me. :)

[Antonio Milanese]

Hi Aaronb,

which version of drivers are you using? 1.52 or 1.48 ?

So far my customers with ESXi 4.0u2 + v1.52 and latest VC/OA firmwarws are running fine (no PSODs)

Are your hosts heavely hammered on network side (iSCSI?)

maybe something related to tx/rx queue buffers?

http://download3.vmware.com/software/esx/bnx2x-README.TXT

Ah..and yes i'm waiting v.1.60 too =)

regards,

Antonio

[Aaronb]

Hi Antonio,
Im running 1.52 and that host was running about 20 VMs with below 1Gbps of network traffic on FC storage.
So, no not being heavily used.

That new driver cant come fast enough. I'm sitting on 9 Blades still in boxes and another 15 that need to be upgraded to 4.1!
very disappointed also ....waiting for drivers for months now....

[AaronK]

In our case:
the PSODs went away after upgrading to U2, but then we just had the network 'fail' (which kind of was worse as it kept the VMs running and we didn't setup isolation mode). We were running ESX 4.0U2 + v1.52 and latest VC/OA firmware.
The failures would happen for use while doing backups (so yes, a little heavier network load. We were running anywhere from 20-35 VMs per blade.