VM can only see 2 CPUs after P2V

[filipzahradnik]

I have just P2V converted Windows 2003 server into a VM on ESX 3.5, using Converter Standalone 4. The source physical box had 2 dual-core CPUs. The ESX box has 2 dual-core CPUs. The new VM has 4 CPUs configured in the VM settings.

When I boot the OS, I can only see 2 CPUs in Task Manager. However, in Device Manager I can see 4 CPUs. When I look at Performance grapgh for the VM, I can see it is only using CPUs 0 and 1. 2 and 3 are there, but idle.

Has anyone seen this?

[kjb007]

Very strange indeed. I would shutdown the vm, change it to 2 vCPU, boot up. Then shutdown again, and change to 4 vCPU.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[Troy_Clavell]

check you HAL, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

Also, a final reboot may get you what you are looking for.

On a side note, you may consider reducing your vCPU count to say 1 and if needed increase to 2vCPU's, you may see the VM reacts much better.

[filipzahradnik]

Hi kjb007,

I tried that last night. The VM started up ok with 2 vCPU. Then I set it back to 4 vCPU and the VM took a long time to boot up - more than 1 hour - so I had to kill it and roll back the snapshot.

The VM is in production, so I might try again overnight.

[filipzahradnik]

Hi Troy,

the HAL is "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" and the VM can see 2 CPUs, so I don't suspect the HAL is the issue. I have rebooted the VM many times and it did not change the situation. The VM needs 4 CPUs and it is the only VM running on the ESX host, so contention should not be an issue.

[Troy_Clavell]

that indeed is a weird thing... You have removed all hardware specific drivers post migration? Check your hidden devices, just to ensure you don't have anything out of the ordinary. You have installed the VMware Tools?

[filipzahradnik]

Hi Troy,

yes, I have VMware Tools running and I removed all the important non-present hidden devices, such as the CPUs from the previous machine, storage controllers, NICS, etc.

Attached is a screenshot of Task Manager and Device Manager. Note the 4 CPUs in Device Manager, but only 2 in Task Manager.

[kjb007]

Click on ESX configuration tab, and check health status. Make sure all looks good and everything is green. Also, on the ESX server summary tab, make sure you see 4 CPUs there as well.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[filipzahradnik]

Hi KjB,

Health Status is all green. ESX is reporting 4 logical processors. See screenshot.

[kjb007]

I was almost sure it would see two cpus bad. Still very odd indeed. You're using win2k3 standard?

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[filipzahradnik]

Yes, it's Windows 2003 Standard with SP2

[kjb007]

Very strange. I have never seen this before. Can you run perfmon, and see how many processor objects it sees and can report on? Also, does the esx performance tab for the vm show that all 4 cpu's are being used?

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[filipzahradnik]

Perfmon can see 2 CPU instances

Performance tab for the VM shows 4 vCPUS, but only 0 and1 are being used. 2 and 3 are idle. (screenshot03).

Performance tab for the ESX server shows all 4 vCPUs utilized roughly equally (screenshot05).

[kjb007]

Looks like Windows is blocking access to two processors, somehow. Can you rerun the P2V? If you create a new vm from scratch, can you see all 4 cpu's?

-KjB

VMware vExpert

[Troy_Clavell]

a new P2V migration may be what is needed, but before you do that, can you try a couple things? If you shutdown the VM, go to edit settings--options, change the OS, to say Enterprise Edition, and reboot, does that change?

Or, maybe a repair on the OS?

[filipzahradnik]

KjB,

I have P2Ved the box three times, with the same result each time.

I'll try creating a new VM and install Windows from scratch when I get some time. This ESX server is at a remote site and I cannot quickly deploy from a template.

[filipzahradnik]

Troy,

I'll try your suggestions after-hours.

[notorious_bdg]

Check boot.ini for the numproc switch. If it's there, remove it and reboot.

[AndreTheGiant]

Remember that your ESX host has ONLY 4 core.

Is not a good idea to run a VM with the number of vCPU equal than the numer of physical core.

Are you running also other VMs?

Andrea

[filipzahradnik]

There is no numproc switch in boot.ini.

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server" /noexecute=optout /fastdetect