VMware Tools shows not running when virtual machine CPU usage is 100%

[DavoudTeimouri]

Hi,

I have a problem, when my virtual machines doing high load tasks, VMware tools not responding and HA restart the virtual machine.

Do you have any same experiences?

Davoud

[Alim786]

What version of vSphere and vCenter ?

Are the VMTools and VM Hardware up-to-date ?

Is it happening on all VMs ?

Is it specifically high CPU utilization ? If yes, have you identified the process(es) causing this ?

[MoeSzyslak]

i have seen same thing:

high guest cpu ussage can block vm Monitoring heartbeat. VM restart on other hypervisor.

the Setting you'r looking for is under Clustersettings > vsphere HA > vm Monitoring

"vsphere ha will restart the VM if the heartbeat between the host and the vm has not been received within x seconds interval"

Actualy this happens only with CentOS6.4/6.5 guests in my Environment. we installed latest vm-tools but ist not better.

Workaround:

you can disable this Feature per vm if you can't prevent the vm use this amount of cpu.

[DavoudTeimouri]

All virtual machines HW and VMware tools is updated.

ESXi 5.1 and vCenter 5.1.

I'm sure that CPU utilization is cause of this issue but I didn't monitor guest OS process.

It's happening on our Windows XP virtual machines.

[Alim786]

It would be useful to know what guest OS process is hogging the CPU, especially if it is happening on only Windows XP VMs. I assume other VM types do not experience this issue, e.g., Windows Server, Windows 7.

Can you provide a sample hardware config list of one of these Windows XP VMs please.

[DavoudTeimouri]

Sure.

OS: Windows XP 64-bit

CPU: 2xvCore - 6 GHz maximum

Memory: 2 GB

Unnecessary devices are disabled on BIOS and VM. Also their templates fully optimized.

[Alim786]

I am just reading your original question again. You are intentionally running CPU intensive applications. Therefore it seems that you will have to do as MoeSzyslak suggests if you do not want the VMs restarting. This is by design.