Poor host performance after recent updates

[bomag]

VMWARE ESX server 3.5.0 on Dell Poweredge 2950 4 CPU 5140 @ 2.33 GHZ 8.00 GB ram

After upgrading to esx3.5-3.5.0_Update_2-110268 server performance has dramatically decreased, however if I drop the host to 2 CPUs it works fine.

I have also further updated to esx3.5-3.5.0_Update_3-123630 with the same results.

The host is Windows 2003 server standard and has worked well on previous versions and updates.

Any help would be appreciated

[kjb007]

Are you referring to a vm guest, or your esx host? I assume a vm, since you're dropping the number of CPUs. Did this vm always have 4 CPUs? Was it created as such? I find, and you'll see others will notice the same, that most of the time, the vm's will perform better at a lower SMP value. This isn't always the case, but it is for most vm's. This should remain with ESX in general. Was the number of CPUs increased/decreased recently before you upgraded your ESX host?

-KjB

[bomag]

Thanks for the feedback

Sorry, what I should have said was "poor guest performance", the host seems fine!

Yes the VM Guest machine has the problem, Yes it has always run with 4 CPUs (about 2 years) but It was created with 2 CPUs (as far as I can remember) as is was ported from hardware!

I was wondering if this may have the problem because it was converted originally from a physical server?, Having said that, previous upgrades/updates have been successful!