Dell Poweredge 2950 with both built-in and Intel card type adapters (1GB to a Cisco 1Gb switch). Computer used to be (last week) a Win2003 server and all 4 ports worked fine at 1GB full w/W2003 x64 I know Windows some, nothing about VMWare:(
Purchased Essentials and installed EXS 5. Initially I was just using one port (#3 here, as in 0,1,2,3) just because I was keeping things simple. Plugged in the others last night and they still show disconnected. Unplugged, replugged, reset, powered off, soft boots, swapped cables.
Looked at http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1009542&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=251848252&stateId=0%200%20251852578 and ran Putty and ssh and see
I jumped up and said AHA, HALF DUPLEX IS WRONG. Although the switch is set to auto 
. I tried
~ # esxcfg-vswitch -U vmnic0 "vswitch0" but I got : No such virtual switch: vswitch0
Checking in vSphere client, all three say Standby Disconnected, and all 3 say that Wake On Lan is YES, while the one functioning one says NO for that.
In desperation, I will try updating the bios on the Dell 2950 (what the heck). I can ignore all this (I do have SOME connectivity) but it is annoying me, so any help appreciated.
Matt