I'm testing vmplayer 1.0.3-34682 with the same problem - after booting windows xp and working for a while, the whole system (host and guest) freezes for about 5 minutes.
This happens in undefined intervals.
During this time I can only login remotely (ssh). A »strace« on vmplayer process reports the following syscalls:
\----
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 312681}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 99) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 412376}, NULL) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 412465}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 0) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 412682}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 99) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 512379}, NULL) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 512467}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 0) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 512690}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 99) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 612385}, NULL) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 612474}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 0) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 612685}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 99) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 712394}, NULL) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 712482}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 0) = 0
ioctl(4, FIONREAD, ) = 0
gettimeofday(\{1171203316, 712775}, NULL) = 0
poll(\[\{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=5, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=21, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=34, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=37, events=POLLIN}, \{fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 6, 99) = 0
\----
I'm testing different settings, so i set sound.present to FALSE or ide1.0.present to FALSE with no success.
As Host i'm using kubuntu 6.10 Edgy or SuSE 10.2, both systems show the same behavior. My host system is a intel core 2 due, 2 GB RAM.
