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WhiteKnight
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Workstation 11: Guest is running extraordinarily slow

I have bought a new machine, mainly for virtualization, providing the latest hardware items available (see below). However, when I'm working in a VM, particularly in Windows Server 2008 R2, the guest is running incredibly slow.

When I'm typing or navigating the text cursor in, e.g., Visual Studio 2013 using the cursor keys - the visible feedback always shows a slight delay. This delay is so huge that when I'm holding down some cursor key for, say, 20 characters, the actual cursor always runs about 5 characters too far - after I have already lifted the cursor key!

This lack of speed can't be a feature of Workstation 11. It wasn't in any previous versions as far as I can remember.

Machine: Fastest on the face of the earth: Asus X99E-WS, Intel i7-5960 Extreme Edition, 32 GB RAM, 3 SSD drives (1 TB each, Samsung Pro), 2 HDD drives (Archive, almost constantly in standby mode, supposed not to be used by Workstation). Guest: 4 Cores, 4GB RAM, 3D acceleration is enabled.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Please post a vmware.log file.

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WhiteKnight
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Thanks for trying to help.

Attached please find a today's log file.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I'm not sure what's going on with those GuestRPC messages every two seconds.  Can you enable full debugging (VM->Settings->Options->Advanced: Gather debugging information) and upload the new log file?

Quite possibly unrelated, but the current microcode patch level for your CPU is 0x2d, and you are running patch level 0x29.  Can you check to see if a BIOS update is available?

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WhiteKnight
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Thanks, J, for your good support.

Today I've been working with the VM in full debugging mode. Attached please find the log file that's been created during that session.

NB: Something notable happened while full debugging was enabled: As you perhaps know, the current Workstation 11 release hangs from time to time (here's the corresponding community thread). Yet today, while I was working in full debugging mode for several hours, the guest OS didn't hang at all. Never once.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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WhiteKnight
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PS: I've already got the latest BIOS installed. It's from End of December, 2014.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

You could try updating the microcode with the VMware CPU microcode update driver (https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-cpu-microcode-update-driver) and the latest microcode direct from Intel.  This might not help, but it's worth a shot.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I see nothing that looks odd in the log file.

Another shot in the dark...

Try this configuration option:

monitor_control.disable_apichv = TRUE

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WhiteKnight
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I have now added this setting to the config.ini file. Is this the right file to put that option?



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Either config.ini or the .vmx file.  If the option is recorded in the vmware.log file, it has been recognized.

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WhiteKnight
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Ah, excellent! Yes, I can see the log entry now.

Alright, I will have this configuration option active now for a few days. Let's see what is going to reveal then ...

Thank you for your great support!

Cheers,

Axel



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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WhiteKnight
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I've been investigating this settings now. No significant difference, though.

I'm almost exclusively working with Visual Studio 2013 Update 4. Is this software perhaps known to have issues with Workstation?



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Can you run the attached vprobe script when the guest is slow?

You will need to shut down the guest first and add the following configuration option:

vprobe.enable = TRUE

Then, when the guest is slow, run:

vmware-vprobe path-to-vmx-file vt-exit-hist.emt

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WhiteKnight
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I just ran the vmware-vprobe, but it doesn't stop running.

I'm not sure how to use this tool correctly. Would you please elaborate on what to expect me to do exactly?



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

You can just kill it after a little while with ctrl-C.  Either copy and paste the output, or upload the vprobe.out file from your VM's folder.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

It looks like you are overclocking your CPU.  Can you try running your CPU at its rated frequency to see if that helps at all?

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WhiteKnight
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Sure, I reset to normal speed next time I boot.

I'm overclocking because I'm regularly performing video edits and 3D video rendering. So I would require to have the overclocking option available again after the test.

Gee, I hope you will be able to read anything from the log.

I have added a batch file to my desktop to immediately start vprobe, but whenever I do, my guest runs slowly all the time. So I can't recognize whether the guest is running slowly because of the issue or because of vprobe.

I'm currently rendering a short 3D movie clip. As soon as this is done I'll try another vprobe session and report to you.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Yes, the vprobe script will slow things down.

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WhiteKnight
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Hot Shot

Here's a vprobe log I took while my guest was freezing.

When I recognized that the guest was freezing and not accepting any keyboard input, I quickly moved the mouse pointer to the Workstation toolbar, left Fullscreen mode and started vprobe logging.

The freeze ended before vprobe started to output its first lines, then (when the freeze ended) - all of a sudden - so many lines were output at once that the first lines scrolled out of the Console buffer. So I missed the first few lines.

Attached please find the log.

Didn't reset CPU speed to Standard yet. Will do within the next hour. Just wanted to catch a freeze situation.

On my machine, a freeze takes several seconds. As far as I can tell, it never lasts longer than 15 seconds.



[VMware]: Workstation 17 Pro; --
[host]: Windows 10x64 host; --
[guests]: Windows 10x64, Windows 8x64.
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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Please shut down the VM and add the following configuration option to the .vmx file:

timeTracker.periodicStats = TRUE

The next time things get slow, please make a note of the time, shut down the VM, and upload the vmware.log file.

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