VMware PCs lagging and crashing. Has been working fine since Jan 2018 and issues started Dec 2018

[chathuo2]

Hi guys,

I am a heavy VMware user. I had 7 VMware PCs which I have to use daily for work purposes. I reduced it to 4 recently because my VMware computers started crashing and lagging one after another. I thought this was to do with RAM, Disk Space or enabling Virtualization options. Having 1GB or 4GB of RAM didn't make a difference. So I changed everything to 1GB. Below is a screenshot of the configuration for each of the PCs. Only thing which made a difference was enabling "Virtualize IOMMU". This seemed to make the machine smoother but still I cannot run two VM PCs simultaneously like I used to for 11 months. It just lags so much and sometimes crashes with the blue screen.

All the trouble started after the update, not the most recent update but the one before that. I have attached screenshots of the settings I use in case it helps. I defragmented them and now it is a bit smoother when using one PC but the same issues when using multiple VM PCs simultaneously. I used the VMware optimization tool as well and I think it did help a bit but still I can't use two PCs at once. My main need is to run two PCs simultaneously as I have a need to transfer information and files from one to another. I got a high configuration device just for this purpose and it doesn't help ANYMORE.

Below is a screenshot of the host configuration

Does anyone know the cause for this or what can be done to fix this? I am out of clues. Let me know if you need any more information and I will reply you as soon as I can. Thank you in advance for taking your time to go through this.

Thank you

Kind regards

Chathu

[louyo]

I would start by reducing the number of processors to 1.

What is your host and VM operating systems?

Are your VM's on separate drives from the OS.

Have you checked the logs?

Are you sure none of the machines are swapping to disk?

[chathuo2]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.

What is your host and VM operating systems?

My host OS is Win 10 and VM OS is Win 7

Are your VM's on separate drives from the OS.

Yes.

Have you checked the logs?

No, I haven't. But what should I be looking for in the logs?

Are you sure none of the machines are swapping to disk?

What do you mean if they are swapping to disk? Could you explain as if you're explaining to a beginner?

Do you think I should still go with one processor for each of these VM machines?

Thanks in advance.

[louyo]

Have you checked the logs?

No, I haven't. But what should I be looking for in the logs?

Any errors or warnings

Are you sure none of the machines are swapping to disk?

What do you mean if they are swapping to disk? Could you explain as if you're explaining to a beginner?

Open Task Manager/Resource Monitor and make sure memory is not at 100%

Do you think I should still go with one processor for each of these VM machines?

Yes, test with that and see what improvements if any.

[chathuo2]

Hi,

So I did everything that you said and a few other things. Reduced the RAM and Processors to 1.

I defragmented the Host PC drives and then went into VMware and defragmented the VMware PC drives one by one. Then I defragmented the same VMware PCs through VMware PC settings as shown below. I know its repetitive but I did it anyway. I also updated windows on some of the VMware PCs because I wasn't able to install VMware tools. And then in the host PC I deleted heavy apps which I didn't need. I am not sure which ones helped but it worked. After all this now my PC is back to how it used to be and it is worth it!. Thank you louyo for the help. I really appreciate the time you took to explain these to me. Have a great day ahead!