Slow vm's

[bigram]

Hi everybody,

I’m training for esxi and I'm facing a problem when I create a vm.

The vm is super slow, even before entering the BIOS, it takes 10 minutes.

I have a good pc on which I run a lab (installed VmWare workstation, then installation of esxi 6.5).

I have a MSI motherboard Z77-G43 with an INTEL I7 3770K @ 3.4 GHz

It is not referenced in the Compatibility Guide from VMWare but many users are using not referenced CPU and motherboards, and it works fine.

I don’t want to sell my MB, CPU and RAM to buy a mini server just for learning…

In the BIOS, the intel-VT is enabled, but no option for VT-D.

The esxi runs without problem, the vCpu's are displayed, but the created vm's are very slow, so much that I can not install them. (it opens the BIOS in slow motion, and the change of menu takes 2 minutes ...)

Esxtop shows More than 100´% CPU usage for the VM, but it’s crazy because it happens at launch, before seeing the VMWARE logo and the BIOS menu…

When I type “e” I expand the process and saw vmx-vcpu-0 till –4 (for the 4 cores I allocated for the vm) but only the first core (vcpu-0) is working at more than 100%, the other are waiting and do nothing.

So even a vpcu cannot handle the vm startup, crazy.

I removed my graphics card (thinking there was an incompatibility) let the job to my integrated display chip, but it didn't work better.

I'm pretty sure esxi and vm's could work on my pc as I made a test with a I5 laptop and it worked, the Windows 2012 vm installed correctly.

Can some one please help?

Many thanks,

[rmigliore]

Bigram

There are several factors that could be at play here. If the system is running good with other apps perhaps the HD speed is one area where you can start to look into.I made the move to SSD and my start times have dramatically reduced and overall speed is up quite significantly.

If a SSD is not an option, try installing 5.5 or 6 and see if you are seeing the same issues.

Let me know how you make out.

[robbielozier]

Just curious are you trying to nest virtual machines?

[bigram]

Hi,

Thanks for quick reply.

In fact, I forgot to mention that I tried on my HDD and then on an SSD, but it did not solve the problem.

Installing previous versions did not make it as well, I installed 6.0, then 5.5, then 5.0.

I did not try to install version 4 because even if it works, it would not be relevant for my training.

it's driving me crazy for 1 week now.

Unfortunately, the cause is elsewhere.

[rmigliore]

Can I see a screenshot of the configuration screen for the VM that you are trying to run?

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hello,

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

If so then see:

XP VM suddenly slow, Win 7 fine

for a solution on using both antivirus products along with VMware

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

[bigram]

Hi Wila,

Perfect ! Many thanks, it now works.

That was the trick.

The option( to allow nested virtualization) in Avast anti virus was indeed ticked, and unchecking it let the vm work fine.

I hope Avast will update this because it's confusing.

Thanks to all guys who helped.