Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

[sswift]

Hi There,

I just got my Asrock FM2A88X Extreme 6+ board, paired with an AMD A8-6500 APU. After installing ESXi 5.X (tested 5.0/5.1/5.5 releases), I cannot get pass-through fully working. Actually, let me explain what I mean by saying "fully working":

• ESXI shows "DirectPath I/O: Suported", as expected.
• All PCI/PCIe devices are available for pass through, as expected
• It looks like there is an issue with A88X (Bolton D4), as the following devices are missing from the list: Integrated GPU (Radeon HD 8570D), Integrated USB3 Controller, Integrated SATA3 Controller.

Tested BIOSes: 1.82j / 2.00 / 2.40
Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Panos

[redjamester]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

i would try removing the discreet gpu, reloading,,may take a couple reboots. trying to search,sorry, not much help.

[sswift]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

i would try removing the discreet gpu, reloading,,may take a couple reboots. trying to search,sorry, not much help.

Removing the discreet GPU had no effect. Just tried newly released 2.70 bios. Same outcome...

All devices are showing up though in lspci output (on esxi host)

[sswift]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

Well, Just tried XENSERVER 6.2 and managed to successfully to pass-thru the embedded GPU to a windows VM (with HDMI sound as well). It looks like that ESXi is not properly recognizing the A88X (Bolton D4) chipset for pass-thru. It could also be a BIOS issue or the implementation of the A88X chipset on the specific Asrock Board, as all other PCI devices are passing through properly - I don't know if the embedded devices in Bolton-D4 chipset (SATA3/USB3/GPU) are behind a proper PCI bridge.

Note: In XENSERVER 6.2, the integrated GPU (8570D) does not passthrough without issues, though. When restarting or shutting down/powering up the Windows VM, the GPU is not recognized and therefore there is no output on the screen. The solution is to reboot XEN host...

Currently I am testing stability and performance stuff in XENSERVER. I will try again in ESXi , as it has a couple of advantages that don't want to lose (like RDM, more powerful UI - Vsphere Client-).
If this a no-go, I am thinking of trying the Extreme6 (A85X) board to see if it properly works on ESXi, as I have to rebuild all of my VM's if I stick with XENSERVER.

I would love to know, if any of you guys managed to pass-through the embedded GPU (particularly) in ESXI, on any other Asrock FM2/FM2+ board. ..

[scorcho99]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

Hi sswift,

I am posted because I have seen your posts about this and had the same problem with onboard devices not appearing for passthrough selection in esxi with my Gigabyte GIGABYTE GA-F2A88X-D3H which uses the same chipset as the asrock board. It uses the same chipset. I tested in 5.5u2 and 6.0 with the same result.

I found a thread with a similar problem here after looking for something else (I had given up on this): https://communities.vmware.com/threa...rt=15&tstart=0

It discusses how to add items to the /etc/vmware/passthru.map file. There is an official document from vmware here: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_vmdirectpath_host.pdf

The header of the file describes the format, its the PCI Vendor ID Device ID that you need. You can get that from lspci -n in the console. I don't know if any option besides d3d0 work but here are some that I added that will probably work with your board as well:

# AMD USB Controllers
1022 7807 d3d0 default
1022 7808 d3d0 default
1022 7809 d3d0 default
1022 7814 d3d0 default
# AMD SATA Controller
1022 7801 d3d0 default
# AMD Audio Azalia
1022 780d d3d0 default

I also have the the onboard graphics and HDMI audio available in the list by adding them (not listed here but I get a code 10 when I try to use it with AMD drivers. I wasn't to worried about that but it would be interesting to get it to work.

The addition for the SATA controller is only the ACHI mode one. Unfortunately, I cannot get that controller to show up in the passthrough list. I tried different reset settings in passthru.map, different RAID/IDE settings in bios (these change the device id you must set in passthru.map), no datastores, datastore on a separate card controller only, drives attached but not formated vm file system. I never got it to show up. Which stinks because I really wanted to pass through the 8 port sata controller for my application. Still, the onboard USB controllers worked with the msiEnabled option and I got that realtek sound chip to work as well. Only limited testing from my end but they seemed OK.

[- wardog -]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

^^^

I likey. Thanks for the post Scorchy.

[sswift]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

Hi Scorcho,

I am afraid I dropped the use of ESXi and in addition I've moved on to the AM3+ platform to resolve all the passthru issues. I've migrated to a unRAID with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 along with an efficient Opteron 3350E, and on top all the virtual machines I needed (windows, Openelec, etc). As far as the FM2+ platform is concerned (with ESXi), I don't believe that is feasible to passthru the onboard SATA controller (at least on the current ESXi releases). Sorry that I cannot be more helpful, but as already said, no more FM2 platform for me ...

[scorcho99]

Re: Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ : Partial ESXI/Passthrough support?

Hi Scorcho,

I am afraid I dropped the use of ESXi and in addition I've moved on to the AM3+ platform to resolve all the passthru issues. I've migrated to a unRAID with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 along with an efficient Opteron 3350E, and on top all the virtual machines I needed (windows, Openelec, etc). As far as the FM2+ platform is concerned (with ESXi), I don't believe that is feasible to passthru the onboard SATA controller (at least on the current ESXi releases). Sorry that I cannot be more helpful, but as already said, no more FM2 platform for me ...

Understood. When I ran into the problem all my google searches kept leading me back to your question (same question I had) on other forums and this one. I'd given up on getting any of the onboard stuff working and then when trying to do something else I stumbled upon a solution. I just thought I'd put it out there since I never could find anything about it.

I also think I'm passing on ESXI and am going with unraid with the new KVM passthrough even after I solved this problem. ESXi pci passthrough seems more solid and mature but everything else about it is convoluted to setup for what I'm trying to accomplish. If I could pass through the onboard SATA controller I might have dealt with the issues but that was sort of the straw that broke the camels back for me.

I was hoping to pass the SATA controller through and run unRaid in the VM off ESXI. But I think I can make unraid KVM machines work for what I need and the entire setup is much less complicated, boots faster and frees me from dealing with VMFS at all.

I have two problems with unraid KVM: USB3 devices attached to and USB3 controllers can cause code 10 errors in VMs when restarting the VMs, and I can't get PCI (not express) devices to pass through.

Have you had any luck passing through a traditional PCI device with unraid on your new motherboard? From reading around it seems like the vfio method unraid uses simply doesn't support pci-e to pci bridges.