CPU usage seems too high with VMware Workstation

[FilippoNeri]

Hi guys,

I am testing VMware Workstation for my company.

The plan is to use our Dell Latitude E6400 notebooks with 2 virtual machines on them.

CPU: Intel Core 2 duo P8700 2.5 GHz

4 GB RAM

Host OS: Windows 7 Professional 32bit

I installed VMware Workstation 7.0.1 on the host PC and created 2 Windows XP SP3 guest systems.

I allocated 1-1 GB RAM for the virtual machines.

If I run the two virtual machines at the same time the CPU usage is about 40 % even if I do nothing.

Is it a normal thing?

How can I optimize the system to reduce this CPU usage?

[golddiggie]

How many vCPU's did you give the VM's?

With 4GB of RAM, you're probably not seeing 100% if under WIndows 7 32 bit. You'll need the 64 bit OS in order to fully/properly address 4GB of RAM or more.

Which video card option is inside the E6400?

The T9600 or P9700 would have been a much better processor choice (more L2 cache on those).

How about the Latitude E6410 instead? Depending on what you're going to run on the VM's, I'd go for the i7 processor set (fastest you can get the money approved for). 7200rpm drives will be very important here too (or high performance SSD's)

VMware VCP4

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[a_p_]

You could try adding

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

to the VM's vmx file and see if this helps.

There are also other things you could try if the above does not help, see http://vmfaq.com/entry/25 for more.

André

[golddiggie]

Also make sure you make the config file edit for the processor speed so that speedstep doesn't give issues.

KB article 1227 (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1227&sliceId=2&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=74890624&stateId=0 0 80691032)

VMware VCP4

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