ESXi PSOD with “LINT1/NMI (Motherboard Nonmaskable Interrupt), ApeiHESTNmiHandler has diagnosed a PCI fatal error”

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• ESXi host encounters a Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) reporting a LINT1/NMI (Non-Maskable Interrupt) event and ApeiHESTNmiHandler diagnosing a PCI fatal error.
• Following log messages in /var/run/log/LogEFI.log:

BlueScreen: LINT1/NMI (motherboard nonmaskable interrupt), ApeiHESTNmiHandler has diagnosed a fatal error.
This may be a hardware problem; please contact your hardware vendor.
Panic_NoSave@vmkernel#nover+0x4d stack: 0x452a00002e50
NMI_Interrupt@vmkernel#nover+0x4d8 stack: 0x0
IDTNMIWork@vmkernel#nover+0x95 stack: 0x0
Int2_NMI@vmkernel#nover+0x9 stack: 0x0
gate_entry@vmkernel#nover+0xa7 stack: 0x0
Power_ArchPerformWait@vmkernel#nover+0xd4 stack: 0x420040001880
Power_ArchSetCState@vmkernel#nover+0xba stack: 0x0
CpuSchedIdleLoopInt@vmkernel#nover+0x292 stack: 0x0
ApeiHEST: 314: Fatal error reported by xxxx:xx:xx.x(PCI Express Root Port). VID:8086, DID:352a, DevSts: 0x5, AERUeSts: 0x20, RPErrSts: 0x54, RPErrSrcId: 0xb4080000.
cpu0:3301326)ApeiHEST: 314: Fatal error reported by xxxx:xx:xx.x(PCI Express Root Port). VID:8086, DID:352a, DevSts: 0x5, AERUeSts: 0x20, RPErrSts: 0x54, RPErrSrcId: 0x8a080000.
ApeiHEST: 314: Fatal error reported by xxxx:xx:xx.x(PCI Express Root Port). VID:8086, DID:352a, DevSts: 0x5, AERUeSts: 0x20, RPErrSts: 0x54, RPErrSrcId: 0xc080000.


Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
VMware vSphere ESX 9.x

Cause

The motherboard firmware or CPU detected a critical PCIe hardware fault and escalated it to a non-maskable interrupt (NMI). The ESXi kernel then halts to prevent data corruption.

Resolution

Engage the hardware vendor with a screenshot of the PSOD screen and the device details for further diagnostics and troubleshooting.