HVM Compatible Motherboards

HVM compatible Motherboards

HVM mode allows xen guests to be fully virtulized at near native speeds without modification to the guest operating system. In otherwords, the guest is unaware that it is actually being virtualized. This is possible because of new hardware virtulization support in recent CPU's. This allows for standard installation of operating systems as on a non-virtualized system. Currently Windows (various flavours), and Linux can be installed without the need to pre-prepare a disk image as is the case with non-HVM mode (paravirtulization). Currently none of the *BSD's are supported in HVM mode, although this may change in the future

Intel has a good explanation of HVM mode HERE.

Currently there is a database of Xen compatibleSystems and Notebooks however this only works well for vendors constructed systems. For those that want to build their own HVM compatible Xen system, this page provides information on motherboards that work. If you have a motherboard that works that and is not listed here, please add it. Theoretically motherboards that support HVM compatible processors should support HVM, however it appears that some BIOS implementations are incomplete or disable HVM mode, so please include your BIOS version. Intel motherboards appear to ship with it disabled by default, whereas AMD motherboards currently have no facility to disable HVM mode in the BIOS.

A list of compatible HVM capable CPU's is HERE.

HVM compatible Motherboards

AMD Socket AM2

Brand	Model	Revision	Chipset	BIOS	Notes
ASRock	AM2NF6G-VSTA		NVIDIA NF6100-405		Success report
ASUS	M2NPV-VM		NVIDIAR GeForce 6150 + nForce 430		Mixed reports Guest OS dependant HERE
ASUS	M2NPV-MX		NVIDIAR GeForce 6150 + nForce 430	0303	Mixed reports Guest OS dependant HERE
PCChips	A33G		SiS761GX + SiS965L		Mixed reports Guest OS dependant HERE
ECS	K8M890M-M	1.0A	VIA K8M890 & VT8237R	2006/10/19	32bits only: XP, Win 2003, Vista

Intel Socket 775

Brand	Model	Revision	Chipset	BIOS	Notes
ASUS	P5LD2-VM	R2.0	945G	1002	Success report
Intel	DQ965GF		Q965		Sucess report
Intel	DG965SSCK		G965		Success report
ECS	P4M800PRO-M	V2.0	VIA P4M800Pro	061004	Core2 Duo E6600, WinXP 32bit under OpenSuSE 10.2 RC1+

Reported HVM Incompatable Motherboards

Brand

Model

Revision

Chipset

BIOS

Notes

Troubleshooting

* Ensure VT is enabled in the BIOS. Intel CPU motherboards ship with it disbled by default.

* APIC / ACPI ---> Need info here

* Freeze during install of WinXP. You need to limit the memory available to dom0. This can be done at boot time with the kernel option dom0_mem=XXXX where XXXX= memory in KB. Alternatively xm mem-set 0 XXXX on the command. See this mailing list post HERE .

* Debian Xen intall from packages. The HVM loader must be installed as a separate package xen-ioemu

* Built from source. hvmloader needs bcc to compile. If you can't find the hvmloader after compile and installation see THIS mailing list post.

CategoryCategory