Physical Adapters on the ESXi host report SR-IOV status as "Not Supported"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• If the hardware/firmware not supported for SR-IOV feature, ESXi host will report the SR-IOV status as "Not supported".
  • Path to identify SR-IOV status: ESXi host --> Configure --> Networking --> Physical Adapters show SR-IOV status as "Not supported"

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

• The necessary Physical NIC hardware or firmware lacks SR-IOV compatibility.
• The SR-IOV feature is not currently enabled in the ESXi host BIOS/UEFI settings.

Resolution

• Make sure the Physical NIC hardware supports SR-IOV feature.
• Ensure the latest and compatible firmware and driver to enable the SR-IOV feature. 
• Validate the SR-IOV is enabled in BIOS/UEFI settings of the ESXi host.

Additional Information

Refer to an example below, vmnicX reports as SR-IOV "Not supported".

• Determine the network firmware and driver version : Reference KB: 323110.
• Login to the ESXi host cli and run following command.

• vmkchdev -l |grep vmnic
  002:01.0 14e4:16d7 14e4:4145 vmkernel vmnic0
  In this example, the values are:
  VID = 14e4
  DID = 16d7
  SVID = 14e4
  SDID = 4145

• Search the Broadcom Compatibility on Device_IO_Compatibility for the Vendor ID (VID), Device ID (DID), Sub-Vendor ID (SVID), and Sub-Device ID (SDID).
• Following information will be displayed : Link
• Choose the ESXi version from above link to validate the driver and firmware compatibility. An example: Link.
• Click on view under the feature column to see the SR-IOV feature.
• 
• Collaborate with hardware vendor to install the supported firmware and driver.
• If the SR-IOV is not supported, contact hardware vendor to further verify the status.