Hi there! My name is Ivan Versluis. I am a Dutch IT Professional working for Almatis as Global IT Engineering Manager. Last year I installed three Dell PowerEdge 1950 1U servers and since than I used them in production as VMWare Server hosts. Couple times when creating and migrating the guest machines I received a warning that my CPU was VT capable but not enabled. To enable this option reboot the Dell server, hit F2 to enter the BIOS and change the Intel VT Virtualization Technology CPU setting. Each month there is a scheduled maintenance and if there is a security update than it will be installed and server reboot, but than I will need to be there and enter the BIOS by console or DRAC console. For that reason I created two scripts to check the CPU bios setting and if required execute the second cmd script to enable the VT option.
Please make sure the Dell OpenManage software is installed. The commands available for Windows and ESX operating systems.
@echo off
REM Ivan Versluis / Ivan1980(at)networknet.nl / Dell PowerEdge Intel VT check
omreport chassis biossetup & omreport chassis processors
pause
@echo off
REM Ivan Versluis / Ivan1980(at)networknet.nl / Dell PowerEdge Intel VT enable
omconfig chassis biossetup attribute=cpuvt setting=enabled
omconfig chassis biossetup attribute=dbs setting=enable
pause
For more information check out this document. The enable script has been executed and I only need to get new security updates for this month. I’ve seen no security update information from Microsoft last days and I will need to wait until next WSUS assigned patches will reboot the servers.
Chris
Thank you so much for informaton on how to enable virtualization via OMCONFIG. I have several PE1950′s and was worried how I would turn it on at our datacenter halfway across town in a punch to allow VMWware 2.0 to support a 64 bit host.
Levi Aasf
Hi,
It seems that there is no source code, code example for it.
I am tring to verify if the VT flag is disable / enable (on windows).
Code eample for this issue will be very halpful.
10X
Rob
On my search, yours was one of the pages that mentioned how to fix this setting. I have now enabled “CPU Virtualization Technology”. Thanks.
It seems to me that the BIOS is not storing the VT setting on your systems. I checked my “PowerEdge 1950 III” and the setting was still on after a reboot, followed by a shutdown.
Does a later BIOS update fix this issue? What BIOS version do you have on those Dell 1950′s? My BIOS version is 2.5.0
Asaf
Hi there how do you get to the console to enter the command?
in this case I have DELL PE-2850.
James
Asaf, the 8 series Dells do not support intel VT so cannot support 64-bit guests.
You will need to find different hardware.
Rogerio
tks !!!!
Mark Mathers
Please note that the document you reference indicates that the dbs should be disabled. In your example you are enabling it.
satish
i hope this command will work on windows server only where as i want check this informtion in bios whether the VT is enabled or not , some of the bios will not have this option ,for that we need to update the bios software , provided by Mother board comapany, VT is compulsary for installing esx servers
Thanks
Satish.P
techxe
Here is an easier way to check for VT or 64bit capability.
http://www.techxe.com/2010/10/27/how-to-check-features-of-cpu/