Error: Chipset: The guest has requested that the virtual machine be hard reset

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

A virtual machine encounters an abrupt restart while the ESXi hypervisor remains stable. Log analysis indicates the Guest Operating System (OS) initiated a hardware reset request. This behavior is a protective response to underlying physical hardware faults, specifically DIMM failures, or critical resource exhaustion within the virtual graphics driver.

• A virtual machine reboots unexpectedly without a vCenter-initiated task.
  
  
• The vmware.log contains the following signature: YYYY-MM-DDT##:##:##.###Z In(05) vcpu-0 - Chipset: The guest has requested that the virtual machine be hard reset.
  
  
• The following warning may appear immediately before the reset: YYYY-MM-DDT##:##:##.###Z In(05) vcpu-1 - Guest: vmwgfx, warning: mob memory overflow.
  
  
• Host hardware logs (IPMI/SEL) may report memory ECC errors or DIMM failures.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x / 8.x

Cause

If the guest operating system encounters a fatal internal error (eg: Machine Check Exception (MCE) or Kernel Panic) triggered by corrupted data originating from faulty/failing physical memory (DIMM), the guest OS sends a reset signal to the virtual chipset to maintain data integrity thus causing the VM to reboot.

Resolution

• Locate and Verify Logs: To find the datastore path and access the vmware.log for the affected VM, execute the following command on the ESXi host CLI: vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
• Remediate Physical Hardware: Inspect the physical host hardware IPMI logs. Engage the hardware vendor to replace any faulty DIMM modules.
• Verify Guest OS Internal State: Examine internal Guest OS logs (e.g., Windows Event Viewer or Linux /var/log/messages) for fatal exceptions matching the timestamp of the reboot.
• Adjust VM Resources: Increase the Video Memory and Guest RAM in the VM settings to mitigate vmwgfx resource pressure.
• Contact Support: If hardware is verified healthy and reboots persist, please contact Broadcom Support.

Additional Information

Windows VM restarts unexpectedly

Uncorrectable Memory Errors Causing Virtual Machine Reboots though VM Monitoring Disabled