AD77
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare Workstation 10 - slow load before "boot" starts

Hello,

I upgraded from v8 to v9 and then v10.0.1. Every time the loading time of virtual machine is slower.

From 15sec in v8 it goes to 50sec in v10. Smiley Sad

So it is normal? the longest time is a black screen even before a boot or starting process of virtual OS begins.

During than "before" booting time CPU goes up (1 core goes to 100%), but HDD is fine.

Reply
0 Kudos
bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hello,

Did you mean the time of booting up guest OS by "loading time of virtual machine"?

Reply
0 Kudos
AD77
Contributor
Contributor

No. Booting of VM is fast.

Imean time before it even starts booting. ---> When I open VM in Workstation and click start it take quite *long* time to start boot virtual OS.

Here is what I found in my log - between this two lines time difference is 45 seconds:

2013-11-27T07:19:22.140+01:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: pg 590258 np 35861 anon 5159 mem 262144  --- so is this normal / common time ?

2013-11-27T07:20:07.006+01:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: numvm 1 locked pages: num 0 max 612352

during that time on CPU 1 Core is on 100%, and HDD Led is blinking quite often.

Reply
0 Kudos
bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Is it a specific VM that you starts slow, or all VMs? What is your guest operating system? And your host OS?

Reply
0 Kudos
AD77
Contributor
Contributor

I am running Windows 7 32bit, Slovak.

Yes, it is slow across all my VM's - Windows XP, 7 and 8 and also Ubuntu 12.

Today, I once more do complete re-install of Workstation to see.

Reply
0 Kudos
bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Yes, when uninstallation, will you please try remove config file? Also, you can remove Workstation related log files after uninstallation.

Reply
0 Kudos
AD77
Contributor
Contributor

So, I done clean install but problem remains. Still "hang-up or delay" at startup.

I clean up registry, and all config files before reinstall.

Here is my LOG of install a new VM (Windows XP) - http://pastebin.com/MxNPzwwA

or here - http://lab.php5.cz/vmware.log (last 8 rows shows when it "hang up").

NOTE: In my Workstation 10, I configured to use maximum of memory for VM. (no swap)

Reply
0 Kudos
continuum
Immortal
Immortal

I would not recommend to use
prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100" without a pagefile on a 32bit Windows host.

Either add a pagefile or use a lower value for prefvmx.minVmMemPct


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

Reply
0 Kudos
AD77
Contributor
Contributor

Does not help. I tried all 3 possiblities. No change at all.

So, my question is how long it typically takes (I mean, VMware logo animation) in [sec] ?  Please, see explanation in my 2nd post.

NOTE: I tried install VM on classic HDD and SSD also. Result: the same.

Reply
0 Kudos
vgiesbrecht
Contributor
Contributor

I am having the same issue... Have you been able to resolve yet?

Reply
0 Kudos
rn701
Contributor
Contributor

Reply
0 Kudos
wmarusiak
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Are all of those VM's imported from previous versions of Workstation?

Try to create new fresh VM and check if issue still persists.

Best Regards, Wojciech https://wojcieh.net
Reply
0 Kudos
bonnie201110141
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I can reproduce it internally. Now we have a bug to track it. Thanks for your post!

Reply
0 Kudos
daltonfirthltd
Contributor
Contributor

Hi - I'm glad you were able to reproduce it. We have similar issue on Workstation 9.03 - is there a workaround?

Many thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
HarryMuc
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here with Workstation 10. "Pre-boot" takes several minutes. During this time PC is almost not usable. It's not possible to move the mouse smooth.

Waiting for the bug fix!

Reply
0 Kudos
mfelker
Expert
Expert

1)  What is the VM operating system?

2)  What is the host operating system?

3)  How much memory does the host have?

4)  How much memory have you assigned to the guest(with the slow boot)?

5)  Do you have more than one VM?  Does tghe slow boot time appen with all the OS?

As a suggestion I would skip the upgrade from v 8 to v9 to v10 and instead install  ws 10 from scratch.  I have found that with any program updates (significant ones like WS) some items are left behind and can effect      perform.

Reply
0 Kudos
vgiesbrecht
Contributor
Contributor

I had VM Workstation running on Win7 32 Bit, and had problems with a linux guest, a windows 7 guest and an xp guest.

I had 4 GB of RAM running a 750 GB SSD.all hosts had 1 gb or ram assigned, but I was not running them simultaneously.

The slow speed occurs prior to the VM posting.

I have since moved to Win8.1 64 bit, 16gb of RAM and the same ssd and am not experiencing the issues.

Hope this helps.

Reply
0 Kudos
mfelker
Expert
Expert

Guess your problem is solved then. Not enough juice before your upgradeSmiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos
H3y
Contributor
Contributor

Any guesses what the solution for my problem would be ?

Host: Windows 2003 SP2, 4GB, 4 core, 2.66Ghz

Guest: MS-DOS 6.22, containing IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and nothing else.

I had no problems starting this in a jiffy from a 5.25 inch floppy 20 years ago on an IBM PC clone 4.77 Mhz and 128k RAM.

However, VMware Player takes 25 seconds to reach the POST screen (where press F2 to enter BIOS setup message appears) before the boot. During that 25 seconds, all my 4 cores are max'ed out, my mouse pointer goes into slow motion, and all my programs grinds to a halt.

What kind of juice do I need to fix this then ?

On a side note, it takes VMware Player 25 seconds to reach the POST screen for all other guests I tried: Windows 98 SE, Windows XP Pro, Window 7 Pro, and Ubuntu,

Reply
0 Kudos
Dayworker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

MS-DOS was a single core OS and does not knows something about multiple cpu's or cores. If you start MS-DOS, it will use the cpu and this means ever with all available cores. You can fix this via task-manager and change the affinity for the process "vmware-vmx.exe" to one core. Or you set the affinity inside your VMX:

processor0.use = "FALSE"

processor1.use = "TRUE"

processor2.use = "FALSE"

processor3.use = "FALSE"

With this setting inside a virtual machine config (VMX), the VM will run only on the second core. You can verify this via task-manager.

----- Please do not forget to assign reward points, if you find an answer useful.
Reply
0 Kudos