Workstation 6.0.1 vmware-vmx.exe running @ 100% cpu after several minutes

[bwpotter]

I've noticed that after running a guest Linux box for 10-15 minutes, the host's vmware-vmx.exe cpu utilization arbitrarily jumps to 98-100% and stays there. There doesn't appear to be any correlation with the guest CPU load; once vmware-vmx jumps to 100%, it remains until I reboot the guest. The host vmware-vmx memory allocation seems quite high as well, maxing out around 1,021,000KB! However, during reboot, while memory allocation doesn't change much, at least CPU utilization drops back to a nominal load (3-10%).

I've searched the archives and this issue has come up but with no clear remedy.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks for any comments.

Regards... Brian

System specs:

• Host machine: Dell Inspiron 8200 XP 1.4/2.4 Pentium M, 2GB RAM, XP Pro SP2, VMWare max. reserved memory: 1024 MB

• Guest OS: CentOS4.5 w/924MB allocated memory

[bwpotter]

Any ideas or possible solutions? I'm really desperate for possible causes. Thanks...

[asx]

I had the same thing, and it was caused by the re-detection/installation of the Standard PCI to PCI bridge device on an up-to-date Win XP install in one of my VMs (which was also pegged at 100% with the "system" process taking all the cycles). Rebooting the VM into safe mode and uninstalling the device, and then rebooting, cleared the hang on hardware redetect, but also triggered a re-activation with MS due to the "hardware" change. Using an earlier patchlevel of WinXP redetected properly.

If you have any XP VMs, check and see if there's any of them hanging on adding new hardware.

[scottwarren]

I had a similar problem running Windows XP Client on Vista (Business) Host it turned out to be the Bios had VT enabled. I am still having networking issues and Disk Corruption issues but I cannot determine the cause of that YET

Regards

Scott Warren

[bwpotter]

The issue is with the host's XP OS running at 100%, not the client machine, which in this case in a Linux distro (CentOS4.5).

[scottwarren]

Sorry I was not clear. I was getting 100% CPU usuage on the HOST also.

[magic-man]

In the HOST (Xp with the VM shut down) go to task manager and stop the service VMAUTHD.exe. re-run the VM. Problem solved? If so, use services.msc (run command) and disable the service.

(XP host issue)

[Sharken03]

I had a problem where the host cpu would be at 100%, but in the guest there were no processes using 100% cpu.

It turned out to be related to the display driver, and the fix was to remove the display driver and let it install itself again.