Workstation 6 BSOD on VM start on XP x64bit host

[TimSmith]

Anytime I, and my co-worker with the same setup, try to start a VM in workstation 6, our PC's Blue Screen.

However, this will only happen if we have 4GB of RAM or above. If I go down to 3GB of RAM, I'm fine.

Both Machines are fresh installs of XP x64, latest SP. We do both have an Nvidia 7300gt graphics card with latest x64 drivers.

The BSOD is "Page fault in a non-paged area" 0x00000050

Workstation 6 - Build 59824

intel 965 MB, 1.8 core2 duo

Any thoughts will be helpful.

Thanks.

[TimSmith]

FYI - Seems to be the Nvidia drivers if anyone else runs into this issue.

If I have 4GB or more ram, after I install the nvidia drivers, my machines with not boot and it BSOD my system.

[rsk02]

I am having the same issue. The problem occurs after I install Forceware but I am not sure Nvidia drivers are to blame. I have tried various methods including a fresh installation of XP x64 to no avail. VMWare workstation seems to be the only product causing BSODs. Everything else, including games (Crysis, BF2), runs fine. My system specs are below and I am using Workstation 6 (latest 6.02.59824). Interesting that you found that the problem only occurs with 4GB+ of RAM. I haven't tried taking out a DIMM yet. However, the only reason I am trying to get XP 64 to work is becasue I want to use 4GB or more. I am running and E6850 proc on an ECS G31T-M motherboard with 4GB of DDR2 800 (Dual) and a bunch of SATA and IDE hard disks. Power is not the problem Everything, including, VMWare workstation runs fine in 32bit (dual boot). There are several threads reporting BSODs on 64bit OSes but I haven't seen any viable solutions yet. Hope someone from VMWare jumps in here to help out.

Update: I uninstalled Workstation and installed VMWare server. This seems to work fine. No BSODs and was able to open some of my machines. Server wouldn't open the other ones complaining that they were created with more features than it supports. I then uninstalled server and reinstalled workstation to see if anything had changed. Nope, it hadn't. BSOD first attempt. I have a dmp file if anyone is interested.

[oo7]

I am also having the same issue. I am really dissappointed, that I have to choose between using VMWare or using all my 4GBs of RAM. I hope that someone from VMWare is reading this and that there will be an update, because the crash happens in the vmx64 driver.

[jjthomas]

I'm running Workstation 6 on an XP 64 bit host with 4GB of RAM. I've not encountered any BSOD's -knocking on wood-! SP's are current to within a couple of weeks. I'm running an nvidia dirver for an NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT. MB is an Asus A8N-SLI with 4GB RAM; 2 ATA Maxtor 230GB drives, 2 DVD RW drives and 4 WD 250 GB SATA drives. I have an external SB live USB. And my Linux killer is an E-MU 1616. The new Alsa finds it and freezes during modprobe. I've got the onboard audio disabled and using the Marvell card for networking. The onboard Nvidia network card has failed.

-JJ

[tolinger]

I'm having the exact same problems with my XP 64 install.

Hardware:

Intel D975XBS2

Q6600

4GB Ram

nVidia 7950GT with ForceWare v163.75

[Rixarena]

Hi,

I have had the same problem and couldnt seem to find a solution to it has anyone managed to fix this? i also tried VMware Server 2.0 and same problem. I am now having to use virtual pc as it works.

Regards Sam

[Appers]

I have exactly the same problem running Windows XP x64 on my system. It's 2 - Quad Core Xeons with 8GB RAM and an Nvidia 8800GTX. I fixed it by uninstalling version 6 and reverting back to version 5.5 - which works so far. It would be nice for VMWare to fix the damn thing since the upgrade to V6 has been a waste of money so far.

[SEITech]

Same problem.

Windows XP x64 SP2 fully patched

Intel S975XBX2 latest BIOS as of Feb 6th 2008

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4ghz

4GiB RAM

NVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MiB RAM

VMWare Workstation v6.0.2 Build 59824

I get a BSOD as soon as I try to turn on any VM. Have to hard restart.

I can avoid the issue if I use a /MAXMEM=2048 in my boot.ini, but then what the heck is the point of a 64-bit OS?

Haven't tried downgrading to v5.5, but will shortly.

[SEITech]

Someone needs to flag this post as UNANSWERED.

[TimSmith]

I am not seeing any place I can set this back to unanswered, and I do not remember setting it to answered.. Is this not something I can change, but only a Mod?

[SEITech]

I'm guessing this is a moderator-only thing.

[Rixarena]

hay,

yeah im still waiting for a responce i had to go to 5.5 and that works or virtual pc works but i want to use vmware.

c u soon Sam

[SEITech]

Ok, at LEAST v5.5 works for me.

C'mon VMWare! Mod-us-up or at least acknowledge that you are ignoring us!

[kg_brian]

Same problems. Please let me know what to do, to get this fixed.

Host - Xp 64

6 gigs ram

Asus p5b motherboard

Nvidia GeForce 8800 gtx

Client

Xp-32

Cisco VPN Client

1/3 connects = BSOD.. very random, but annoying.

[kg_brian]

Cut down to 3 gigs of ram, did not help. Not sure if I can go back to vmware 5.5 since all my VMs are from 6.. hum

[kg_brian]

Also tried vmware 5.5. No help.

Only thing consistent is..

XP 64 host

Nvidia drivers

[kg_brian]

sigh,

after 8 hours of troubleshooting I got it figured out. At least for my problem, no guarantees for you guys problem. The VPN client I was using is not SMP safe... disabling the 2nd virtual CPU in vmware fixed everything ;(

[SEITech]

I can't understand what a VPN client has to do with any of if... where does that fit in to a VMWare setup? Did you mean VNC? If so, it would suggest that you are not using VMWare Workstation for typical Workstation usage...

Anyway, I already tried dropping down to one virtual CPU in my virtual machines and that did not help... but then your problems sound different for multiple reasons - 1) VPN 2) WS v5.5 wasn't working for you either. For myself, and other posters here, a downgrade to v5.5 seems to be the only hope, as it does actually work.

But this is helpful information, still. We can use it to rule things out.

[AZDeveloper]

Try uninstalling the nForceware drivers if it will let you. I did a clean x64 install on my 8GB RAM machine and can boot VMs now since I didn't install the nForceware drivers for my card.