Windows 8.1 guest consumes all host memory and then hangs Max

[PeterEvans59]

Hi,

Updated to latest VMWare Fusion 6 update, on 32gb RAM iMac, running Mac OS X 10.9.2.

Had noticed that at times when running the Windows 8.1 guest the iMac had frozen, requiring power off to reset.

Have a Windows 8.1 64bit guest that has max memory set at 8gb.

Started the Windows 8.1 guest and run up OS X Activity monitor to watch memory usage.

Started a backup and the host RAM get chewed up in no time, way beyond the physical limit I had set.

Eventually, consumes all the memory and the iMac freezes.

Do not understand why the max physical limit I set is being ignored.

Is there some setting that I can prevent all this memory being used and then freezing the iMac?  BTW, not running Unity

Hope someone can assist please, as currently the Windows 8.1 guest is useless given it keeps freezing the iMac when all memory is consumed!

Thanks

Peter

[PeterEvans59]

Looked into the advanced guest settings.

There was an option "Hard Disk Buffering", turned this to disabled and the guest no longer consumes all the host RAM

This is really weird, and why does this now behave in such a bizarre manner?

Peter

[scorbarieu]

Hi,

I get the same issue since I upgraded to 6.0.3. with the same iMac configuration. really surprising cause I had never such issue with this professional product.

Safe way for me was to downgrade to 6.0.2. I didn't test the work around from PeterEvans59 as I suppose Hard disk buffering helps a lot with i/o performance.

Had never that issue with that version so I'll wait for a fix.

Stephane

[admin]

Hi Peter & Stephane,

Welcome to community and thanks for using Fusion.

I have tried with my iMac (32 G RAM), for default 2G, 8G , even 32G RAM allocated to the vm, but not encountered the issue. (But my host version 10.9.3 GA, but I don't think it is the root cause for this)

So my suggestion is:

1. Uninstall and Install the VMware tools

2. Upgrade to 10.9.3 (If possible)

3. Set "Hard disk buffering" to Automatic (Just as Stephane said, it will help a lot with i/o performance)

4. Do not allocate too much memory to vm, the default for windows 8.1 is 2G RAM (Please change if indeed necessary)

5. Use command  "purge" in terminal (It will force host to free inactive memory, may need sudo privilege)

Then check other applications still consume the memory in background, hope it is a help for you.

[admin]

BTW, the Fusion 6.0.3 support Hardware version 10, which can support 64 GB memory, so I recommand to upgrade to HWv 10 as well

[scorbarieu]

Hi Leo

thanks for your advise.

I got in touch with the support about this. Actually I did upgrade to OSX 10.9.3 and the issue seems to be gone. for 2 days of work on the win7 guest.

For the record I did not disable "Hard Disk Buffering".

Thanks also for the tip to upgrade to HW v10.

Stéphane