ESXi 6.5/6.7 on Z2 mini G3?

[HMS_Swiftsure]

I'm trying to use my Z2 mini G3 entry unit as a home lab running ESXi. The device has a i5-6500 and a single 8Gig stick, and it has no dGPU.

I really enjoy the web interface so I tried vSphere hypervisor 6.5 and 6.7, using a flash drive as a installation media.

With 6.7 the system boots to ESXi loading interface but prompted the following

Shutting down firmware services…

Using "simple offset" UEFI RTS mapping policy

I tried 6.5U2 and 6.5a, both display a full black screen. I did some search but everyone seem to get a word or two on their screen. I'm running an ultrawide, but it should not be a problem. My monitor didn't auto sleep so it does output a full black instead of no output.

The flash drive is the average type you'll find in a college bookstore, but with only four or five formats it is probably fine…

Should I try updating the BIOS or anything? Anyone have a blog detailing the installation procedure on this particular machine?

[DGroves]

ESXI  is a program that installs on specific hardware, unlike windows that has hundreds of drivers for most common hardware ESXI was written with specific hardware in mind, this hardware list is posted on the ESXI/VMWare website

ESXi Hardware Requirements

• ESXi 6.5 requires a host machine with at least two CPU cores.
• ESXi 6.5 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.
• ESXi 6.5 requires a minimum of 4 GB of physical RAM. ...
• To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on x64 CPUs.

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc/GUID-DEB8086A-306B-4239...

[bottier]

Hi, Setting "legacy support enable and secure boot disable" in the BIOS and booting ESXI installation media in legacy mode prevented the issue in my experiance.