ESXi 8 - ignoring a TSC mismatch PSOD
Problem
Both of my Dell T5810s are failing to boot ESXi 8.0U2 - meet PSOD with a TSC sync error. E5 2660 v4 and E5 2690 v4. Counter is off by same value every boot, and both machines experience no instability with Win/Linux, so bypass is necessary and reasonable to boot ESXi.
Fix
Shift+O to add command line options to boot 1) installer and 2) install for the first time. Add command line options:
tscSyncSkip=TRUE timerForceTSC=TRUE
After first boot, SSH to the machine and either:
- use esxcli:
esxcli system settings kernel set --setting=tscSyncSkip --value=TRUE
esxcli system settings kernel set --setting=timerForceTSC --value=TRUE
- edit /bootbank/boot.cfg (kernelopt line)
kernelopt=... tscSyncSkip=TRUE timerForceTSC=TRUE
to set the above boot options.