High Host CPU Usage running a Windows 7 Guest

[kevinparker372]

Hi,

Doesn't seem to matter at all which settings I use, I always get over 100% CPU usage from the vmware-vmx process. As you can see the client is not actually using that much CPU.

Only seems to happen with Windows guests, but this is an absolute battery killer.

See video

YouTube

[kevinparker372]

Support file attached.

If I uninstall VMWare Tools the problem goes away... Just really surprised this is an issue a paid product and a decade old OS.

[tparker]

I switched to Parallels and it solved my problem.

Not the answer you're looking for, not helpful, and possibly not even appropriate in this forum.

But sorry - for me that worked a charm.

[kevinparker372]

Seems like a good idea. I can't believe people pay for this product over $100 USD when it doesn't even work out of the box on their what 11th version?

No one from VMWare even replied.

[jlwolfe]

But you are not being ignored.   A Product Manager filed an internal bug report from your posting and I have been looking through the attached zip file today.  So far nothing to suggest what the issue(s) may be.  I am in the process of trying to reproduce the problem.

Your original post indicated that you have tried "different settings"; can you provide some details?

Both the Windows 7 VM and CentOS 7 VM are configured with 8 GB and 4 virtual CPUs.   How many physical cores does your Mac OS X 10.14 system have?

[jlwolfe]

That should have stated 4 GB of memory each for 8 GB total.

[kevinparker372]

Thanks for the response. Toggled all hardware off that I could (sound, usb, bluetooth, etc) and still the same issue. It does not happen if vmware tools is not installed. This also occurs when Cent OS is not even running.

The computer is a 2018 Macbook pro, 6 core, 12 thread cpu. It's annoying vmware shows up to 12 available, but VirtualBox is the same way.

Happy to provide additional debug data if possible... The VMDK was converted from a virtual box VDI if that matters, not in use by virtual box.

[jlwolfe]

If you would, please try the following steps to help isolate the possible source of the problem.  Record the CPU usage after each step.

1. Disable the VMware graphics WDDM driver (you can do it from Windows Device Manager)

2.  Stop the VMTools NT service (vmtoolsd.exe process running in system account)

3.  Exit the vmtoolsd.exe process running in user account 'Kevin'

[kevinparker372]

Did all 3, it didn't make a difference. YouTube

Looks like it's my mistake, uninstalling vmware tools didn't seem to make a difference: Untitled 9 - YouTube

[jlwolfe]

Thanks very much for running the tests and collecting the videos.

Since VMware Tools appears cleared at this point, I will forward the internal problem report to the Fusion team for further investigation.

In the meantime, would you please provide answers to the following?

1. What version of Mac OS are you running on the Mac Book 2018?

2. Presumably the VDI disk was created/running on Virtual Box

    - Do you recall what version of Virtual Box that was?

    - Is there anti-malware application(s) on the Win 7 VM and if so what?

Thanks again for taking the time to provide details.

[kevinparker372]

Hi,

I don't recall what version it was created with. The OS is 10.14. Really not much has been installed on Windows 7, just Photoshop.

I could create a new Windows 7 VM from scratch, but it's such a pain.

[jlwolfe]

Since the .vdi was created and running under Virtual Box, I am wondering if there is some VB specific driver, application or service that was automatically installed and if that could be result in a spew of interrupts.

  * Power on the Win 7 VM so that the problem is actively occurring

  * On the host, launch a terminal and run the command:

    - sudo powermetrics --show-all -n 5 -u /tmp/powermetrics.txt

    Enter your password if prompted.

  * Wait for the "powermetrics: to finish, approx. 25 seconds.  Nothing will be displayed.

The resulting text file, at /tmp/powermetrics.txt, may show something of interest.

[kevinparker372]

File attached.

[jlwolfe]

Thanks.  I have attached the zip file to the internal problem report.

[kevinparker372]

Installing windows 7 from scratch seemed to fix the issue. Was probably the vdi to vmdk conversion, something in there vmware doesn't like.