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olshaa
Contributor
Contributor

All VM operating systems running slow - host running fine

I'm not as technically apt as most of you, so let me know if I'm missing any vital info and I'll so my best to find out.

I'm running VMware Workstation 12 Pro (12.5.9). Host is Windows 10 Pro. 64gm RAM, Ryzen 7 1700x 3.4ghz.

2-3 weeks ago, all VM's started crashing or running very poorly. Each would slow down and often crash completely. That would often mean having to force the shutdown of the VM. The VMs at the time were running Windows 8. Sometimes I'd just get extreme lag on the mouse/keyboard, missed clicked etc. Sometimes just no response at all. It would have moments where it appeared to be working properly for a short period. I didn't change any settings at the time either.

I attempted a fresh VM install and got the same issue (Win 8 VM again). They might run for a short period but then the VM would inevitably crash or continue to run very slowly. I often had to force shutdown of the VM through vmware.

I've since tried an alternative guest OS (Win 10 pro) which gave the same effect.

I've tried varying the resources I gave to the VMs - up to 16gb ram 2 processors and 2 cores each (actually I tried even higher than that too) and nothing seems to have helped.

I've upgraded to VMware 14 and had the same issues again.

I've since chose the fresh start option on windows 10 (host) to see if that helped and again, the same issue persisted (installed vmware pro 12 again).

I'm happy to follow any suggestions.

Other notes:

-Whilst I used to run 3-4 VMs at once, I've recently only being trying to run 1 at a time while I figure this out

-When there are issues on the VMs, the host performs absolutely fine. Task manager doesn't show and resources being hogged by VMware

-I tried the fresh start on my host OS, as I noticed that the last windows upgrade was on the 6th of feb. I'm not quite sure if this timed with the issues though.    

-I don't believe this is related to the mouse/keyboard input - as it will often crash on startup. I do use a Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, but tested a wired mouse at one point which didnt make a difference.

If there's any more information I can provide, please let me know!

Thanks in advance

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8 Replies
wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hello olshaa,

Welcome at the VMware community forum.

Are you running AVG, Avast or BitDefender 2017 antivirus at the host OS?


If AVG or Avast then see:

XP VM suddenly slow, Win 7 fine


for a solution on using both antivirus products along with VMware

TL;DR

In Avast Settings, troubleshooting you should uncheck the "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization" feature.

In AVG Settings, troubleshooting, uncheck "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization" feature.

Note that you will have to reboot to apply the change.

If you are running BitDefender 2017 at the host then the only solution that I am aware about is to uninstall and revert to an older version of BitDefender.

Hope this helps,

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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olshaa
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I'm not using any of the above. Only windows defender and I even tried turning most of the relevant settings off to no avail.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Have you tried uninstalling those Windows updates from 3 weeks ago?

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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olshaa
Contributor
Contributor

Hi.

Since I chose the 'fresh start' option on my host Windows 10 a few days ago, I don't have the option to uninstall updates. The furthest it goes back is the date of the fresh installation. I cant seem to find if there's a way around this.

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elopezvaldez
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Does the VMs have the latest VMware Tools installed?

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olshaa
Contributor
Contributor

At this point I've just reinstalled and created fresh VMs, so no. That being said the previous VMs did and the same problem showed. Same goes for a previous 'new' installation after reinstalling Vmware.

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elopezvaldez
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

But you need to install VMware Tools in each one of your VMs manually, if not, you certainly will present performance issues and poor user experience on each one of those VMs.

Refer to:

Installing VMware Tools

Regards.

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olshaa
Contributor
Contributor

To clarify, the problem has been there consistently regardless of whether VMware Tools have been installed.   

When the issue initially presented itself, all VMs had tools installed.

When I reinstalled VMware and created new VMs I again instlaled tools and the issue still presented itself.

I will install tools on the latest  VM, as I'm aware it will make a difference. I'm saying however that this doesn't seem to be the cause of the issues from what I've seen.

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