VMware ESX/ESXi fails to install, becomes unresponsive during boot, or experiences a purple diagnostic screen when using KVM device

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You cannot boot or install a server when a Keyboard Video Mouse (KVM) device is attached.
• ESX/ESXi 4.1 host experiences a purple diagnostic screen during boot or install
• On ESX/ESXi 4.1 host, you see an error similar to:
  
  The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue.System initialization failed: Additional processors initialization failed
  
  
• On an ESX/ESXi 3.5 host:
• • You see an error similar to:
    
    0:00:00:33.008 cpu0:1024)SMP: 1729: could not start pcpu 1
    0:00:00:35.108 cpu0:1024)Init: 759: SMP_BootAPs failed:0xbad0001
    
    
  • When the machine stops you see the error:
    
    WARNING: VMK: 538: Initialization of vmkernel failed, status 0xbad0001
    IRQ: 1153: VMnix slice 0 IRQs pending 0x1 unexpected IRQ trap at vector bf
    VMK: 1071: Waiting for vmklogger to dump log buffer...

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

Cause

This issue may occur if any type of PS2 to USB adapter is attached to connect the server to existing KVM environment through PS2 KVM conversion cabling.

Resolution

Contact VMware and IBM technical support to determine if this issue is related to KVM, or of it is related to other hardware such as memory or CPU.

For more information, see the IBM Technote on VMware ESX fails to install, hangs during boot or PSOD's when using KVM device.