VMware: physical vmnic# not showing up after upgrade...
Summary: This was a weird one. I had a couple of Dell FC630's (FX2 Blades) w/ qlogic broadcom 57810 integrated card in them. Went to upgrade them from 6.0 to 6.5, that's when the fun began. Before upgrade, my hosts could see them just fine. After upgrade, they could only 'see' vmnic1. Fresh install was also having issues. Solution/Workaround: In my case, I had to literally remove the FC630 blade from the FX2 enclosure so that all residual power would be drained. Once done, whatever it was that was hanging the firmware for my nic finally cleared for ESXi to take control of it. Details: