Cannot Power On a Virtual Machine with Too Many PCI Devices

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

If you use the VI Client to add too many PCI devices (for example, four NICs) to a virtual machine, and then attempt to power on the virtual machine, the following error message results:

Cannot register hypervisor PCI device.

Failed to initialize Hypervisor device

The virtual ROM card, which appears in a virtual machine when VMI Support is enabled, takes up a slot on the virtual PCI bus. As a result, the limit on the total number of PCI devices in the virtual machine (as enforced by VI Client) is inaccurate when VMI support is enabled.

After the video card, there are five slots left on the virtual bus. The VI Client correctly counts SCSI controllers, NICs, and audio cards against this limit, preventing (for example) adding a third SCSI controller when there are already two NICs and one audio card present, even though the maximum number of SCSI controllers in an ESX Server virtual machine is four.

Environment

VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded

Resolution

Remove a PCI device. You can then power on the virtual machine.