Host and Guest System freeze regularly for several seconds

[kbimweb]

Hi there

I have the situation that my guest system freezes regularly (every 1..5 minutes) for several seconds and then continues to work normally. During this freezing time the response of the host system is slow, but working. The taskmanager shows 50% for "vmware-vmx.exe", on the performance tab of the taskmanager it indicates 100% CPU-Load. The taskmanager of the guest system shows no unusual CPU load, but stops refreshing during the freezing period.

It seems that "vmware-vmx.exe" is hanging in a timeout. But for what?

I removed the "virtual" floppy disk from the VM settings, since I don't have one on my laptop.

I also removed the "virtual" CD-ROM device from the VM settings, because I read that it could cause problems.

Host system:

Win7 Ultimate 64Bit, 4GB RAM, VMWare 7.1.0 build-261024

Guest system:

WinXP Prof SP3, 1.7GB (VM setting)

I hope that someone has an idea because its very annoying to work like this.

Thanks in advance.

Kalle

[AWo]

Welcome to the forums!

Have you installed the VMware Tools inside the guest?

How many vCPU's are assigned to the guest and how many cores does the host have?

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[kbimweb]

Hello AWo

Yes, VMTools is installed (V8.4.2).

The host is a "Intel Core 2 Duo (T9600, 2.8GHz, 2.8GHz) and assigned to the guest are 2 processors.

NB: I had to reinstall my host system some time ago and I unpacked an image, which I created after I installed Win7 the first time on this laptop.

On the first installation, I didn't have this problem. But I'm not sure anymore if I used VMWorkstation 6.5 on that installation.

Thanks for your help

Kalle

[AWo]

Reduce the vCPU count to 1.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[kbimweb]

Wow, it seems fine and was so easy.

Thanks a lot.

Do you know the reason for that?

Kalle

[AWo]

Do you know the reason for that?

On a physical host the OS owns all cores and can schedule its work whenever it wants to. A virtual host has to share the cores with the host OS and other guests. And symmetric multiprocessoring is used. That means if a guest needs to schedule work it has to wait until all assigned vCPU's (=cores) are available. That slows down the guest. When it has scheduled its work it occupies all vCPU's (=cores). If the vCPU count is too high or equal the number of cores, too less cores are left to do the other work. That slows down the host and the other guests.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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[kbimweb]

The interesting thing is:

On another laptop with a Core i7 M620 CPU, the guest system has 2 processors, 2 cores per processor (total processor cores = 4) assigned and everything works fine. No hangs!

????

Kalle

[AWo]

The rule of thumb is max. 50% of host cores as vCPU's per guest.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

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