Dear all,
after following this discussion for quite a while now, I thought I might give it another shot with my setup:
- Shuttle SZ77R5 (Intel Z77 chipset)
- Intel Core i7-3770
- 32 GB RAM
- ATI Radeon HD 5450
- ESXi 5.1 (same results as with 5.0u2)
In the BIOS I changed the primary display to PCIE (this might already be at least one of the problems since I'm quite sure that the onboard GPU isn't completely disabled) and disabled the onboard HD audio. I'm running Win7x64 with 2 GB of RAM, clean install including all updates.
I then enabled the GPU passthrough (disconnected the monitor, see below) and installed VMware Tools. I rebooted the VM and installed the display driver:
Even though I have a 5450 card, I cannot install its appropriate driver; no matter what I do, I always get the message that I have the wrong Windows version for the selected driver to work (I tried all the .inf files in the ATI drivers-folder, and of course I downloaded the Win7x64 driver 
).
Windows boots just fine, but as soon as I physically connect the display (DVI), I get the well known BSOD.
Any suggestions (except from buying a new MB, of course; people here try to make their setup work and do not want to buy other stuff )?
Cheers