HP Z400 Workstation PCI Card Not Detecting

[Kaaiz]

Dear Community

I have a PCI card that is detecting in any windows operating system but when I install VMware ESXi 6.0, it does not show up. The other cards present on the board show up in ESXi, its only this specific card not showing. I tried everything, I have spent 2 full frustrating weeks on this but I am unable to come to a conclusion. I have updated BIOS, changed card slots, changed cards with same PCI slots, everything is detected in ESXi except this one card. I know the card and slot is working because Its detecting in Windows. Any suggestions or any ideas would be highly appreciated as I am running out of ideas.

Thank you

[BeemerBiker]

I have z400 and run VirtualBox 6.1.14 but your VM (ESXi) is different by having a kernel according to WiKI which somehow makes it unique.  There is also a version 7 out.

It is possible that your VM kernel has its own drivers (from what I know of Ubuntu) which does not include your card.  You mention PCI.  Is the card an old PCI or the newer PCIe type?  It could be the older PCI type cards and associated motherboard controllers are not supported.  It could also be that AHCI is not enabled.  This is something the VMware support are better able to answer.

What type of add-in card is it?  I have GTX-1070 and USB3 PCIe and at one time used the eSata port multiplier and all worked under VMware VirtualBox.

Good Luck!

[Kaaiz]

Hi BeemerBiker

Many thanks for taking the time to reply. To answer your question, yes this is an extremely old PCI card. Its not PCIe, the company is dissolved now so getting the drivers for EXSi will be impossible. I was afraid that it could be either a driver or the PCI card not getting enough power but since its detecting with windows it means its a driver.

My goal is to virtualize an old machine that uses this card for specific security purposes. I am flexible with the virtualization software. I only chose ESXi because I use that. Does virtual box have the capability to pass through a PCI card? If yes then I can install Windows and Virtual Box on top of that and pass through this card. 

I did not understand the AHCI bit that you mentioned. Anyway I am happy to use Virtual Box if I can use the PCI card.

Once again thank you 

[BeemerBiker]

I found that some USB3 add-in cards required AHCI to work.  That is enabled if RAID is selected.  Some older system combined AHCI and RAID as one option  and IDE as another.

I am not sure what you are trying to do.  If your PCI card is, for example, Digital or Analog IO then "way back in DOS days" one could read/write a register and measure or generate voltages or trigger interrupts.  That no longer works as one has to use drivers that run in privileged mode to interact at that hardware level.

If you are installing an old Apple OS to run some older application then https://www.tonymacx86.com/ has forums that can help.

I currently use VirtualBox only with BOINC applications that are doing research for various scientific and medical studies and coincidently earn a small amount of crypto as a result.

Good Luck!

[Kaaiz]

Thanks for replying. Thats way too technical. I am just trying to use an old PCI card because my application needs it to work. All I want to do is pass through to my windows OS. Once windows detects it in my VM, the job is done. Do you know if virtual box if installed on windows can pass through my PCI card. I was reading online that it might be possible to pass through in ubuntu. But if you have some links that helps with passing through my PCI card to my VM that would be super helpful. 

Regards