Hit this error at work today installing ESXi on a Dell Optiplex seems to be common with them. Ether Dell is preventing the cpuid from being read or not reporting it properly. Following the 3 steps below will let the installer skip the cpuid check and proceed with the install.
- At the initial bootloader screen (when booting from the ISO), press TAB to edit the boot options
- Hold down the left-arrow key to move the cursor back to the beginning of the boot options, and add nocheckCPUIDLimit” right after “vmkernel.gz”, so that the first part of the boot options BEFORE the first “—” reads: “mboot.c32 vmkernel.gz nocheckCPUIDLimit —”
- Press ENTER.
Edit:
To make this permanent once in the infrastructure client navigate to Configuration –> Software –> Advanced Settings – > VMKernel –> vmkernel.boot.checkCPUIDLimit and uncheck
esxi cpuid limit fix
In case someone comes across this on google like I did, there is one missing step. After installing, it will to boot again with the same error. You will need to add the nocheckCPUIDLimit parameter once again. When the boot screen comes up with the progress bar at the bottom and something like “Booting Hypervisor” at the top, you need to press Shift-o. It will ask for advanced boot options, enter “nocheckCPUIDLimit” and press enter to finish booting. Then you will be able to change the setting permanently using the infrastructure client as mentioned in the post.
This worked for me on a Dell PowerEdge SC430 using ESXi 3.5 u5 from a USB memory stick.
On my Dell PE SC1420 it was “mboot.c32 vmboot.gz nocheckCPUIDLimit —” and not after vmkerne