Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Also, did these just for trouble shooting. Have already deleted them both. Can recreate fairly quickly if any use.
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5668
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by fth0 »

sterod wrote:They wiped the machine, so had to start from scratch.
But forgot to get rid of Hyper-V again. Back to square one. ;)

Other than that, I see two differences that may be important:

1. The old VM uses a VHD image, and opening it took already 10 times the time of opening the VDI image of the new VM. I'd suggest to convert the VHD image to a VDI image for a test.

2. The old VM has the old VirtualBox Guest Additions (GA) 5.0.22 installed. I'd suggest to boot Windows XP into safe mode and to uninstall the GA. In addition to that, the GA seems to recognize Windows XP as 32-bit, whereas the VM is configured to run the 64-bit version. I don't know if this is a problem or not.
mpack wrote:The "new" log shows the VM booting from the install CD
Taking a look at the device statistics, approximately 150 kB have been read from the ISO image, and 150 MB from the VDI image, suggesting an automatic switchover during the boot.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

I understand the issue with the XP you mention, but the fact is that ALL my virtual machines, most of them Windows 10 with latest service pack installed, are behaving the same. They take far longer than 10 minutes to boot, and often crash. Totally unusable.

The part of the log where a lot of time is spent is for example here (below). Does this tell us anything?
00:01:55.172985 VMMDev: Guest Log: VBoxDisp[0]: VBVA enabled
00:02:16.387850 GUI: UISession::sltAdditionsChange: GA state change event came, notifying listeners
00:02:16.762314 GUI: UISession::sltAdditionsChange: GA state really changed, notifying listeners
00:02:16.762353 GUI: UISession::sltAdditionsChange: GA state change event came, notifying listeners
00:05:50.031490 AC97: Record select to left=Microphone In, right=Microphone In
00:05:50.031567 AC97: Record select to left=Microphone In, right=Microphone In
00:07:25.691573 GUI: UISession::sltAdditionsChange: GA state change event came, notifying listeners
00:07:32.525864 Shared Clipboard: New Clipboard API enabled

How do I change the format of the VHD? Could try to see if that helps.
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5668
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by fth0 »

sterod wrote:How do I change the format of the VHD?
You can use VirtualBox Manager > Virtual Media Manager > Copy or 8.23. VBoxManage clonemedium to clone the virtual hard disk file, then replace it in the VM configuration.

Regarding the pauses, investigate on the host and in the guest using your favorite task manager (as mpack already suggested).
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

OK. Will convert the VHD to a VDI and see what happens...
frg
Posts: 88
Joined: 29. Sep 2013, 12:22

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by frg »

> I have an NVidia GeForce GTX right here. It's not a problem. They're a little lax about signing their DLLs, otherwise IMO they make the best graphics cards and drivers on the market. Signing problems don't make VMs slow, they make them error out: and not even that for XP since there's no 3D acceleration for it anyway.

Again. I have a GTX10170 in my desktop too and it is mostly flawless. But it is worth to check on the laptop if it works with the Intel only setting. At least the W520 with somewhat older drivers is unusable with Virtualbox because of some problem with Nvidia Optimus and I experience exactly the same problem there. The Nvidia chip output is routed somehow thru the Intel one for screen output and this seems to cause this problem there. In the case of the W520 it might be a design or older driver error but it does not take long to disable the Nvidia in bios and check to rule this out.

FRG
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

To close this issue, let me report that the problem was with the hardware of the laptop.

So, the issues had nothing to do with Virtual Box per se.
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5668
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by fth0 »

Thanks for reporting back. Can you tell us what kind of problem the laptop hardware had?
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Cannot say for sure. After the initial problems, I wanted to exclude hardware problems and sent it back to MSI workshop in Sweden for checks. They told me that they had changed the motherboard, but when I got it back the poblem was still the same, so I thought naturally that it must be a problem with the VirtualBox software.

But then after a day or two, the trackpad stopped working, so I sent back the laptop a second time. This time they first said that it was a software problem, but then subsequently they replaced BOTH the trackpad and the motherboard a second time!

After that the laptop had no performance problems!

While waiting for the repairs, and not having any high hopes that the problems would be fixed, I bought another laptop with two SDDs with RAID 0 and a Ryzen 9 5900HX chip, 64 GB RAM, and that one also works perfectly with VirtualBox and my old Virtual Machines. Very fast and solid performance.
Post Reply