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slavisam87
Contributor
Contributor

vmware-vmx high cpu usage causing Mac to heat up constantly

MacBook Pro Retina:

  • Model Name: MacBook Pro
  • Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,4
  • Processor Name: Intel Core i7
  • Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
  • Number of Processors: 1
  • Total Number of Cores: 4
  • L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
  • L3 Cache: 6 MB
  • Memory: 16 GB

VMWare Fusion Professional Version 8.5.10 (7527438)

When I power-on the VM, MacBook fan starts to run very noisy and get machine hot. I've seen in Activity Monitor that a process "vmware-vmx" is hanging a lot of CPU (about 100-150% at any time).

I got a Windows 10 Enterprise VM with dedicated/allocated 2 cores and 8GB RAM. I power-on the virtual machine and min later the fans are running very fast and Activity Monitor shows that vmware-vmx is using +100% CPU.

I've tried to play with the resources, turn off accelerate 3D graphics but no result. What can I do to troubleshoot and how do I get to the root cause. This issue was not even noticeable a year ago but not sure what changed to all the sudden heat up and run high CPU.

Help please!

33 Replies
intsol
Contributor
Contributor

Thankyou, great advice.

My CPU for the VM with Windows 7 idling has reduced from 80% to 4%

Macbook PRO Mid-2015
Mac OS Mojave 10.14.5

regards

intsol

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DirkFR
Contributor
Contributor

I just signed up here, just to say "THANK YOU!".

Your solution finally solved the issue for me for good.

Dirk

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kartblanch
Contributor
Contributor

Hi! Do you know how this issue can be fixed in Fusion 11.1.5?

Your configure is not working.

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mschoepf
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

using VMware Fusion Professional Version 11.5.1 (15018442) here, problem with excessive cpu load still persists.

VMware menu-item disabled, tried the described OpenGL-fix without success.

Running MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013), 16G RAM, Catalina 10.15.2.

The below sreenshot shows a very minimal FreeBSD-VM with OpenStep4.2 installed.

1 CPU and 128MB(!) of Memory is assigned (more than enough for that operating-system!), no graphics acceleration.

Terminal output inside the VM verifies %CPU-column as idle (0%) for _all_ processes, ActivityMonitor at the bottom shows a Host CPU-Load for vmware-vmx of around 80% continuousely which massively drains the battery and heats the MacBook in idle state (dreaming of a local cluster with 2-4 lightweight unix-servers - would eventually burn down my machine?).

Still unsure if VMware Fusion (Pro) is currently usable as a serious development tool (as I intended to use it for), usage for occasional (and intentional) startup of some guest-os should be ok (for now?) ...

Regards, Martin

ps: I will soon upgrade to one of the latest 16-inch MacBooks and report my experiences there.

Screenshot 2019-12-30 at 13.28.20.png

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,


What version of FreeBSD are you running in there?

--

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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mschoepf
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Wil,

thanks for your fast reply. I have tried Other/FreeBSD in all supported Versions (10 and earlier, 11, 12) and also the Other/Other-Option as Base VM-Type, same result with each of them concerning vmware-vmx cpu-usage. As the OS's prerequisite is the Intel-processor I think this will not make much of a difference (effective installation is performed from a CDROM iso).

The installed OpenStep4.2 for Intel-processors is based on a Mach-Kernel 2.5 which is compatible with BSD 4.4 (Mac OSX is kind of the 'official' descendant of OpenStep/NextStep). Of course I know this is a somewhat 'exotic' operating system where no wmware-Tools support is available. Although i wonder where the constant cpu-load originates from - it might of course also be a display-related driver issue inside the VM (currently my main 'suspect').

Martin

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Oh OpenStep / NeXT?

Not FreeBSD then.

I remember installing that and yes it had a high CPU usage problem.

Most likely because of a similar issue as with MS-DOS. On MS-DOS VMs you have to load a program DosIdle because DOS itself did not run the CPU Idle command when not doing anything.

See also: VMware Documentation for MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1x

As a result the CPU is constantly crunching. This was not much of an issue at the time, but in newer CPU's it means they cannot go idle and thus go to a lower power state.

See here: NEXSTEP/OPENSTEP Utilities - OpenStep on Microsoft Windows PC Emulators

--

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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elaslo
Contributor
Contributor

This change has reduced a W10 client's 3%-5% to host 20% usage ratio of 3-5/20 to 3-5/1-2!!!
Good advice. The interface should have  an advanced option where you could see these options.


Are these renderer parameters hidden or deprecated?

If I touch the Display settings they seem to go away and I have to "put them back" again into the vmx file.

Doesn't feel robust to me if the file is always regenerated from the ground. I would feel safer if the UI would ask if I wish to change these options.

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Atif_YNI
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Look at the processes on the WIn10.

I had similar issues and 2 things worked for me:

1. In this thread, a person has provided vmx line additions to manipulate the video processing. That worked.

2. I was seeing this issue specifically with my Mac VM. I found that OneDrive was going nuts and lrprd process was doing the. I kill them every once in a while still and it calms my MAC down right away.

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mdedmon
Contributor
Contributor

BluedevilX

Thanks for this information This does seem to have made a difference. It sometimes spikes up during heavier loads and especially during Windows 10 startup, but this is the first time I've seen it run around the 70%ish mark. Plus, the "WindowServer" process is now showing substantially lower CPU usage than before. I'm sure that's related as well.

Thanks again!

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sexyz
Contributor
Contributor

I also have the same issue even after having tried a few "solutions" suggested in a few different threads in this forum and also somewhere else:

1) disabling Metal rendering and enabling GL rendenering in the .vmx file

2) disabling VM application menu bar

3) disabling 3D graphics acceleration

4) disabling USB debugging

5) MacBook Pro SMC or nvram resetting, etc.

but none of these work in the end on my rMBP12 and rMBP18, with different macOS releases, and VM versions, and VM machines (Windows 7/10).

for most current situation (win10 VM on rMBP18 with Catalina), inside VM, each of two major processes uses about 25% CPU (total < 50%), on host side, vmware-vmx takes somewhere around 200% CPU (energy impact is 0.2 but the 12 hr power is 29.53 >> any other processes), and the fan keeps running most of time.

really annoying but anyone has successfully solved this issue? any hope with the new VM Fusion 12 release?

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

High CPU from that process is almost always caused by something in the VM (anything above a nominal load will kick the fans into high gear on the new macs).

Some more ideas:

- Run windowed not unity

- Disable system restore in guest

- Disable AV scans inside guest (live protection is fine, just not scans)

- Make sure the VM was built from scratch, not converted from a physical machine

- disable autoprotect

- remove snapshots

- don't use encrypted vm's

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Tex99
Contributor
Contributor

Hi there! 

I've just tried in this way and to me worked out just fine:

1) Disable side-channel mitigations in "advanced" section of the VM configuration

2) Deactivate the Antimalware System Executable in the Windows10 VM, which eventually can be the cause for a large CPU and RAM background draining (for disabling it: moderator edit: removed spammy link )

Here's my poor setup btw:

- MCP 13" 2017 2 core 8gb ram
- MacOS Big Sur 
- Windows 10 on VMware Fusion 12 w/ 1 core and 2GB ram

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rodrigobraz
Contributor
Contributor

BluedevilX's proposed solution did not work for me. After I modify the .vmx file and restart the virtual machine, I get a message that the file is corrupt. Good thing I kept the original file around.

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