Hyper-V and “Sandy Bridge” processors from Intel

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Intel has recently released their new “Sandy Bridge” processors which is the second generation of the Core i3/i5/i7 processors. Most of these new processors hitting the market with the first wave of product released are designed for notebooks and a few for desktops with server processors on the way. An easy way to identify the new Sandy Bridge processors is that the processor models are 4 digits. For example, you’ll see processors such as the i7-2600k or i5-2500k and so on. There are a number of good articles on these new processors (like this) so take a look if you’re interested in what’s new.

We raising this topic because we want you to be aware of an issue with both Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and the new Sandy Bridge processors and provide the solutions.

Issue: When you attempt to start a VM running on a system with a Sandy Bridge processor, the virtual machine will not start. If you go to the Event Viewer you will see an error that states: “<VM Name> could not initialize” error.

Solution: There are two solutions. The recommended solution is option 1.

  • Option 1: Upgrade Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 which properly supports the new Sandy Bridge Processors. After installing Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, it adds support for the AVX instructions in the parent partition and within the virtual machine for guest operating systems.
  • Option 2: Apply this hotfix to Windows Server 2008 R2. After installing this hotfix, it adds support for the AVX instruction in the parent partition, but does NOT present AVX instructions within the virtual machine for guest operating systems.