vmware-vmx high CPU usage

[AaronA1975]

I've read a handful of posts here about RC1 using an unusually high amount of CPU and I wanted to add a data point. I've noticed that the vmware-vmx process uses anywhere from 30-80% constant CPU time while I have a virtual machine (XP or Vista) running. I have checked to be sure that the VM isn't actually doing anything, and usually the only running process in the VM is Task Manager, which uses about 2% CPU.

Is this something I can correct, or is it simply a bug in the release candidate?

[msh_]

Here's the sample for someone to symbolicate.

[jas8522]

Also,

The reason I decided to try and hunt for a service or process that was causing the high CPU usage is because I was monitoring the vmware-vmx process as I started up Vista in the VM, and just after it got to the point where I entered my password and it was booting to the desktop, there were tiny fractions of the time where the vmware-vmx process was only using about 5-10% CPU... yet after fully loading everything it would never go below 20% CPU.

Do either of you notice that 5-10% CPU usage at times before fully booting to the desktop? I'm thinking that it could simply be some other process creating the problem.

Jordan

[msh_]

Aha! Getting rid of iTunesHelper dropped the CPU down to about 6%, which seems right. Cheers for the hint.

[admin]

Interestingly vmware doesn't seem to quit when

windows shuts down - it just says "now safe to turn

off" etc. I wonder if that's indicative of something

related...

Did you import this from Parallels or a physical machine? This can happen when the virtual machine doesn't support ACPI (Parallels doesn't, and neither do really old machines). A fix is described in Brian's conversion notes.

[msh_]

Did you import this from Parallels or a physical

machine? This can happen when the virtual machine

doesn't support ACPI (Parallels doesn't, and neither

do really old machines). A fix is described in

Brian's conversion notes.

That worked well. Thanks.

[jas8522]

Ahh, this makes sense. Whenever I visit msconfig on a windows machine I always disable iTunesHelperApp from startup - which I happened to do at the same time I disabled that Apple service then reboot.

So for clarification my high idle CPU issue was also solved by disabling iTunesHelperApp on startup.

I think perhaps there should be a sticky regarding high idle CPU usage with directions like:

1) Make sure you wait until all disk and CPU activity on the VM has settled down

2) If it's a BootCamp install, try removing the VM and allowing it to be re-added

3) Disable iTunesHelpApp

or something along those lines. There does appear to be at least 4 or 5 threads on the matter after all.

Jordan

[jed24]

Thanks a lot!

I killed the ituneshelper process.

The CPU usuage dropped from 60% (2 Cores) to 15%.

:smileycool:

[husseinkanji]

I have the same problem, with my vm feeling very sluggish and my vmware-vmx process consuming 60-70% of the MacBook Pro CPU over time. it starts off at 10% and grows to 70-80%. Nothing is happening at all in the Windows XP vm, but it's very slow b/c vmware-vmx is taking up all the CPU.

This was exactly the problem with Parallels, but VMware was much better initially. BTW, 1.1beta really makes this awful (99% CPU usage), but 1.0 is a bit more tolerable, but only for a day or two, after which vmware-vmx takes up way too much CPU until the vm reboots.

Here's a sample:

[mschonberg]

I experienced the same problem. I noticed that quiting applications that accessed the network extensively lowered my CPU usage from about 30% to about 8%. Changing the network configuration from NAT to Bridged fixed the problem with the applications running.

[rcardona2k]

Are these P2P network applications? Or applications that open many simultaneous TCP connections? I have been trying to reproduce this - thanks.

[mschonberg]

Actually,

It is online poker software (that is about all I use Windows for these days :smileysilly:). www.ultimatebet.com and www.ultimatebuddy.com. The latter is an application that allows you to locate other players on the site, and it displays the problem without running the main application. You can create an account for free.

As far as I can tell with netstat, I see only a single https connection; however, I suspect that application continuously sends and receives data over the socket.

Regards,

-Mike

[HollenEstelrim]

Just a couple of other possible remedies to consider (this applies to the latest version of vmware fusion as of 7/09 running on MacOS 10.5.7):

1) Uninstall any Mac-based anti-virus software (for instance, iAntivirus (iavd process) conlficts with vmware-vmx).

2) Reinstall vmware tools (from the Virtual Machine menu, select "install vmware tools" and select "repair" during the installation)

3) Reduce memory allocation for your viritual machines to less than half the max allowable.

These steps (separately, in any order) seem to help for different causes to the runaway CPU utilization issue.