Details
ESX Server 3.5 Update 1 might not work if the IBM Athena x3850 M2 or x3950 M2 servers are booted into debug mode. This issue occurs due to a BIOS bug on IBM Athena x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 servers.
Solution
Currently, there is no workaround. This issue will be fixed in a future update release.
IBM Athena x3850 M2 or x3950 M2 servers might stop responding when booting into debug mode with ASSERTvmkernel/hardware/pci.c:1088.
Based on VMware KB 1004843
