ESX Guest really slow but idling all the way

[meilon]

Hi!

I have here two ESX 3.5U4 on HP ProLiant DL360 G5 with 8x 2GHz (Xeon E5405) and 32GB RAM each.

A long time ago a WSUS 3.0SP1 was installed on a MS Windows Server 2003 SP2 x86 on that ESX Cluster. Because the performance was bugging me for a long time I set the RAM from 512MB to 2GB and added the 2nd vCPU and shut down the "Windows Internal Database" which was used by the WSUS before. Now there is running a SQL Express which also hosts the DB for a G Data AV-Server. I also "optimized" the RAM and CPU usage of the SQL Server but still, the machine is as slow as it was before. Booting the Server 2003 OS takes like forever (approx. 5-7 minutes) and opening the Task Manager or Explorer Window takes much longer than it should take. The Guest has nothing to do as well as the ESX-Servers are at about 30% used each on CPU and RAM

Attached you will find the vmx configuration file. Is there something configured wrong or is it the windows which needs more clean up?

Kind Regards

Christian Arnold

[AntonVZhbankov]

Check if disk is a bottleneck. In this case additional memory and CPU doesn't matter.

---

VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[mvoss18]

Is the CPU HAL set to multiprocessor since you are now using 2 CPUs? Are there resource limits set on memory for the VM? Are there any processes using a lot of CPU in task manager? Check the page file settings in the guest OS.

There is no configuration file attached...

[meilon]

The VMDisk can't be the bottleneck because both vmd's are on the same SAN Storage. All other machines don't have this kind of slowness.

Under resources-tab the RAM was limited to 386MB, I moved the limit up to 2GB (reservation now at 512MB). There are sometimes some working processes, but most of the time both CPUs are only at 4-7%. Maybe the resources change makes the difference.

And I definitely attached the vmx, but here the old vmx in plain text. Currently only the ram limits were changed:

#!/usr/bin/vmware

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "4"

floppy0.present = "false"

nvram = "20wus190.nvram"

deploymentPlatform = "windows"

virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"

tools.upgrade.policy = "useGlobal"

powerType.powerOff = "default"

powerType.powerOn = "default"

powerType.suspend = "default"

powerType.reset = "default"

displayName = "20wus190"

extendedConfigFile = "20wus190.vmxf"

scsi0.present = "true"

scsi0.sharedBus = "none"

memsize = "2048"

scsi0:0.present = "true"

scsi0:0.fileName = "20wus190-000001.vmdk"

scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

ethernet0.present = "true"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "false"

ethernet0.networkName = "Netzwerk"

ethernet0.addressType = "vpx"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:50:56:82:7e:0b"

usb.present = "false"

serial0.present = "false"

serial0.fileName = "/dev/ttyS0"

serial1.present = "false"

serial1.yieldOnMsrRead = "true"

serial1.fileName = "/dev/ttyS1"

guestOS = "winnetenterprise"

uuid.bios = "50 02 c2 50 e3 f3 6b 10-8a 56 6c 93 a2 a0 f4 a6"

sched.cpu.affinity = "all"

sched.mem.affinity = "all"

sched.cpu.min = "0"

sched.cpu.units = "mhz"

sched.cpu.shares = "normal"

sched.mem.minsize = "368"

sched.mem.shares = "normal"

sched.scsi0:0.shares = "normal"

guestOSAltName = "Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit)"

scsi0:0.redo = ""

tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

uuid.location = "56 4d 29 51 19 6f 69 fd-87 75 d9 54 39 a5 68 b8"

sched.mem.max = "368"

sched.swap.derivedName = "/vmfs/volumes/479f7d33-a54388f2-febf-001e0b9151ba/20wus190/20wus190-34838a88.vswp"

migrate.hostlog = "./20wus190-34838a88.hlog"

cpuid.1.ecx = "R--RRR-0--

---

H-R"

cpuid.1.ecx.amd = "R--

---

R-"

cpuid.80000001.ecx.amd = "--

---

RR-RR--

---

"

cpuid.80000001.edx = "--R--

---

"

cpuid.80000001.edx.amd = "----

---

"

hostCPUID.0 = "0000000a756e65476c65746e49656e69"

guestCPUID.0 = "0000000a756e65476c65746e49656e69"

userCPUID.0 = "0000000a756e65476c65746e49656e69"

hostCPUID.1 = "0001067600040800000ce33dbfebfbff"

guestCPUID.1 = "0001067800010800000822110febbbff"

userCPUID.1 = "0001067600040800000822110febbbff"

hostCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000120000000"

guestCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000120000000"

userCPUID.80000001 = "00000000000000000000000120000000"

evcCompatibilityMode = "FALSE"

scsi0:1.present = "true"

scsi0:1.fileName = "20wus190-000002.vmdk"

scsi0:1.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

scsi0:1.redo = ""

numvcpus = "2"

ide0:0.present = "true"

ide0:0.fileName = "/vmfs/volumes/479f7d33-a54388f2-febf-001e0b9151ba/ISOimages/de_win_srv_2003_r2_standard_x64_with_sp2_vl_cd1_X13-47718.iso"

ide0:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

ide0:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

[AntonVZhbankov · Accepted solution]

Looks like problem was in low-level memory limit, so you had actually 384MB only.
---

VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[meilon]

Okay, this was the Problem. Booting up was on regular Windows Server 2003 Speed and the Desktop feels much faster and generating a report in WSUS now only takes a few seconds!

Thanks @ all!

[mvoss18]

That would have been my other question--is it affecting all VMs or just this one? If it were affecting all, then that would have pointed to a larger problem. Glad to help!