Problem with intel virtualization

[Metalgalle]

Hi guys, I have VMWare Workstation 12.5 installed on my HP Probook 6570b laptop.

Everything worked fine for years until I had to diassassemble my laptop and removed CMOS battery, starting from that day I'm no more able to run VM,

If I try to run a 32bit VM, the VMX process takes the whole CPU core and the VM takes hours to boot-up. Same behaviour if I try to run a 64bit VM.

If I go to bios, disable Intel virtualization, I can successfully run 32bit VM, but VMWare WKS says that I can't run 64bit VMs because of missing Intel Virtualization tecnology.

As already said, before removing the CMOS battery, I can successfully run all VM types, also nested virtualization VMs.

Any ideas?

Thanx a lot to everyone in advance!

[bluefirestorm]

I assume that you meant replace the CMOS battery and not simply removing it as that battery is usually for the real time clock.

It might be the case the CPU clock speed is not being estimated correctly after the CMOS battery replacement (and thus taking hours for a VM to boot up). Can you check the vmware.log if the clock of the processor is estimated correctly? The log entry section should look like this.

vmx| I125: VMMon_GetkHzEstimate: Calculated 2591998 kHz

vmx| I125: HOSTINFO: Host supports constant rate TSC.

vmx| I125: TSC kHz estimates: vmmon 2591998, remembered 0, osReported 2601000. Using 2601000 kHz.

I would suggest to reflash the UEFI/BIOS. If it doesn't reflash because it already is the latest version, try flashing to a lower version (if the laptop allows it) and then re-flash back to the latest version.

[Metalgalle]

Thanx a lot for reply!

I just tried to run a x86 VM and the log says:

2017-09-29T16:16:50.252+02:00| vmx| I125: VMMon_GetkHzEstimate: Calculated 2494379 kHz

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: HOSTINFO: Host supports constant rate TSC.

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: TSC kHz estimates: vmmon 2494379, remembered 0, osReported 2501000. Using 2494379 kHz.

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: TSC first measured delta 161

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: TSC min delta 143

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: RefClockToPTSC 0 @ 2435917Hz -> 0 @ 2494379000Hz

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: RefClockToPTSC ((x * 4294967282) >> 22) + -59763883747080

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: tscOffset -59763940578585

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: using TSC

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: hardware TSCs are synchronized.

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: hardware TSCs may have been adjusted by the host.

2017-09-29T16:16:50.253+02:00| vmx| I125: PTSC: current PTSC=236069

[bluefirestorm]

From the looks of it, the clock estimate is not off by much as it is very close to the published base clock frequency of 2.5GHz for Ivy Bridge Core mobile processor that your laptop probably has. So the theory/suspicion that the processor clock is not accurate causing the problem does not hold.

I cannot think of any other possible cause of slowness.

But I think you should try the reflashing of the EFI/BIOS in case that some setting (not necessarily visible in EFI/BIOS setup) was lost or "forgotten" when the CMOS battery was replaced and reflashing might in some way restore it.

[Metalgalle]

Thanx a lot for your reply!
Today I tried to re-flash the laptop bios (I found an upgrade), but nothing changed.

As you can see in attach, If I run a single-CPU VM, with Intel VT-x enabled in the BIOS, the VMX process takes 25% of the whole system CPU (if I run a 2-cpu VM it takes 50% and so on...) and in order to boot-up an XP VM it can take up to 30mins...

If I disable Intel VT-x in BIOS, I can correctly run x86 VMs, but not x64 ones...

[Magneet]

have you tried resetting the bios to defaults, boot, power down, power on  and then set the bios how you like it?

[Metalgalle]

Just tried also resetting to defaults, boot, shutdown, enable VT-x, reboot, and nothing changed.

I also tried to upgrade my Workstation installation to version 14, but nothing changed...

[Metalgalle]

Update:

If I disable "data execution prevention" in BIOS, when I click on play button to run a VM, my PC crashes and reboots (without BSOD).

[Metalgalle]

Another update:

I tried to load virtualbox in order to do a test.

Same behaviour of VMWare Workstation...

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Are you running AVG, Avast or BitDefender 2017 antivirus at the host OS?

If AVG or Avast then see:

XP VM suddenly slow, Win 7 fine

for a solution on using both antivirus products along with VMware

TL;DR

In Avast Settings, troubleshooting you should uncheck the "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization" feature.

In AVG Settings, troubleshooting, uncheck "Enable hardware-assisted virtualization" feature.

Note that you will have to reboot to apply the change and make it permanent.

If you are running BitDefender 2017 at the host then the only solution that I am aware about is to uninstall and revert to an older version of BitDefender.

--

Wil

[Metalgalle]

Thanx a lot Wil!
Disabling hardware virtualization feature in Avast did the trick!
Now I can successfully run both x86 and x64 VMs!

Thanx a lot for support!!!!