ESXi PCI Passthrough of UPD720201 wont boot in EFI mode

Operating Systems & Open Source Virtualization
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1

I have a USB controller card specifically this one:

7 Pt PCI Express USB 3.0 Card by Startech

which has a NEC UPD720201 chip in it.

I am trying to do PCIe passthrough of it. It works PERFECTLY when a VM is set BIOS mode but when I switch over the VM to EFI in ESXi, the machine won’t boot (it just stays at a black screen). Is there a VMX option that I’m missing to get this thing to boot in EFI mode? I am really perplexed as to why it works in one boot mode and not the other. I just want a card that works in EFI that doesn’t require me to disable the ACS check and this card is halfway there.

Is anyone using a better USB controller card that:

  1. Works well in ESXi for PCI passthrough
  2. Boots in EFI mode
  3. Doesn’t require overriding the ACS check

I don’t necessarily care if it had multiple controllers that I can share to multiple VMs, I will only being using this with one VM at a time, but that would also be a bonus nonetheless.

2

hello my friend, have you tried esxi custom flings? passthrough should work without the drivers as well. so i think you have secure boot problem, on EFI please clear or disable secureboot.

3

I have the same Issue! But I found out that it works if Secure Boot is disabled and if my USB 3.0 Hub I connected to 1 port was detached. The same HW works with Windows 10 and BIOS but it seems that something prevent Bootup on ESXI8 if Windows 11 is used with PCI Passthrough with above USB PCIe card and some USB devices atatched.
Try it without USB Devices attached. Maybe one device cause this issue