Most bizar VMware compatibility issue ever

[HerbertHerbertc]

Hello VM Community,

attached you'll find probably the most bizar and strange compatibility issue case of all times.

Starting off by performing a simple CPU upgrade troubles arose around a task as profane as BOOTING an OS, so strange Im really to my wits end.

Here's the plot in bulletpoints.

Functioning status quo for months:

o Two Win7 64 PCs (1xDesktop Win-Home, 1x Laptop Win-Professional)

o Both Intel (Desktop Core2Duo E8200, Laptop Core i5)

o Both 8GB RAM

o Desktop has its VMs on an USB3 SSD (Samsung T1)

o Laptop has em internally on oldschool spinning HDD

o VMs: Ubuntu 14.04, Mint 17.1, Win XP SP3, and couple others

Eventually I decided to beef up my Desktop, buying and putting in the fastet CPU my old Asus Mainboard (P5N-e SLI) can accomodate - an Intel Core2 Extreme Quad QX6850. I lucked out at ebay.

Said and done - the CPU being put in, my Desktop Host runs smooth, 4 CPUs do show up in Task Manager, CPU-Z validates all the options I hoped for, thus I anticipated launching VMs were a nobrainer.

BOOT SYMPTOMS

Unfortunately it turned out totally differently. Everytime I power on the VM either of the following cases occurs:

a) guest BIOS -> screen change -> host Dialog pops up, something like "CPU reset occured by guest cpu ...."

b) guest BIOS -> screen change -> guest boot begins -> guest linux boot stops after 1 or 2 seconds, console showing few lines and "cant mount root FS..."

c) guest BIOS -> screen change -> guest boot begins -> guest boot takes forever, running down lines like "cannot change ownership of file ..."

PROBLEM CASE

Here's the HW/SW combination that does NOT work:

-> (Desktop PC)  &&  (new Intel QX6850)  && (SSD)  && (any Linux) == Fail

To make things clear:

1. Only linux installations are affected (old, or fresh installs, or copies from elsewhere dont fix it). Thus, guest Win XP does work !

2. Only installations are affected. Thus, launching the Mint 17.3 live-image for instance does work while a subsequent Mint 17.3 installation fails !

3. Only Linux VM on SSD is affected. Thus, copying the Linux VM to HDD does work (even old installs) !

4. Only the desktop is affected. Thus, running the exact Linux VM (from the very SSD) on my Laptop does work !

5. Only the new QX6850 CPU is affected. Thus, my former E8200 never acted up like that ! (yet, why does a guest Win XP run on the new CPU?)

Aparently, as indicated by points 1-5 there's no such one culprit to blame. Every component would work given the right combination, yet it all breaks apart in this very one particular combo. How's that ???

And to worsen things furthermore I'ld have to admit: It did work once immediately after I tucked the new CPU into my mainboard; and then never again.

ATTEMPTED (YET USELESS) FIXES

o different VMware versions (player 7.1 , workstation 12)

o vmware services checked

o virus scanner deactivation (avast)

o gazillion of reboots

o host driver updates

o host BIOS tweaks

o guest BIOS tweals

o SSD checkdisk

o guest linux bootscript tweaks (after temporary copy to and boot from HDD)

o guest resource adjustments (CPU #, memory GBs, ...)

o running vmware.exe as admin

After all its odd that one guest would run (Win XP) while another doesnt (ubuntu) unless the latter was copied on the internal HDD or left on the SSD but attached to another computer. Truely awkward.

Unfortunately google, the forum, vmware's tech lib and the product spec. dont give away too many hints on troubles like that, therefore Im hoping for other users who have encountered similar issues to be willing to share fixes they were able to come up with.

Given the symptoms, I'ld put my bet on some leftovers buried anywhere in my desktop host windows that make the VMware player / workstation fail if running linux.

Something like a bunch of unique settings only effective if executing a guest linux cuz it might utilize different virtualization techniques compared to a guest windows.

For sure neither the CPU is damaged nor the VM files corrupted nor the SSD broken..... like said before.....weird piece-of-xxxxxxx

BR and thank you so much !!