Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

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

Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

For several years I was running VirtualBox on my Dell XPS with 32GB RAM and i7-7700HQ prosessor. Gone through VirtualBox versions 5.2.2 to now 6.1.22 without any real problem. Presently running Windows 10 20H2

Now tried to upgrade my hardware and bought an MSI Summit E15 A11SCS with a i7-1185G7 processor and 64 GB RAM, running also Windows 10 20H2. Configured it exactly like my old system, and expected better performance.

However, the new system cannot even load my Windows 10 Virtual Machines but hangs. I tried on a Windows XP Virtual Machine, which takes about 30 seconds to load on the old system, now takes 8 minutes to load on the new system.

Seems completely illogical, as on the paper the new machine is much more powerful. Anyone has a clue as to why this happens, or what can be done about it?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

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

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Disabled Hyper-V on the machine, and much improvement! Now all the VMs are actually loading.

The main constraint is now disk utilisation which spends a lot of time at 100% at and a long time after loading the VMs. However, once it settles down, the performance of each Virtual Machine is now much faster than on the old system.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
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Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

New Windows installations always use a lot of hard disk. It is generally recommended to leave them alone for a few hours to finish all their disk indexing and update checking.

This will go much faster if the VM is located on an SSD. I reserve this for my most important VMs. Also, be sure to give each VM two cores exactly, not more or less.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

I think I jumped too early. Did more tests, and still takes 6 minutes to load the Windows XP that takes 30 s in old machine. Let all the VMs sit idle for a couple of hours, but they still show 100% CPU utilization without doing any work. Occassionally the disk utilization is also goes to 100%.

Really confused.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

Like energy, CPU time doesn't just vanish - something is converting it into work. So check the task list in host and guest to see where the CPU hogs are. Be aware that any use of CPU in the guest will show as CPU use by VirtualBox on the host, so that usage does not count.

Any further discussion will require a VM log. Make sure the VM is fully shut down, then right click it in the manager UI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Talk with the manufacturer, and they told me to send back the laptop for checking, which I have done. I really doubt that it is a hardware problem, but as they offered to check it out, I thought it is better to rule out the possibility first.

Once I get it back, and there is no improvement, I will run some test and provide the logs.

I saw on another thread about someone who switched to a Ryzen processor, and the comments there were that when you change hardware you might have problems because the old VM is set up and configured for the old hardware. The problem of installing a completely new VM is naturally that the licenses on all installed software will become invalid, whereas if you just copy the old VM the operating system sees it as the same machine and does not give any problem.

Could this be an issue? Would it be a solution to just reinstall everything? Right now I am scared to buy yet another machines as I don't feel confident that it would work.

If I was sure it would work I would maybe buy a laptop with a Ryzen chip and a RAID 0 configuration with lots of RAM. Has anyone successfully used this with VirtualBox?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

sterod wrote: I saw on another thread about someone who switched to a Ryzen processor, and the comments there were that when you change hardware you might have problems because the old VM is set up and configured for the old hardware.
Unless you can provide a reference to that discussion then there isn't a lot that can be said about it. Hopefully it is at least a post on forums.virtualbox.org: I see a lot of uninformed garbage being tossed around the Internet that I don't bother to correct - keeping this site accurate is already as much unpaid work as I need.

The only aspect of the host PC that a VM sees is the CPU. And if the guest boots then it isn't that.

Some people use the "save state" (aka suspend) feature a lot, and that was definitely never intended to be portable to other PCs, or even to other versions of VirtualBox. If you don't suspend your VMs then it isn't that.

Seriously: speculation and thrashing will get you nowhere. Look at the task lists and you won't need to guess.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
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Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

p.s. On the subject of speculation not being necessary, I'd like to draw your attention to something I already said above:
mpack wrote: Any further discussion will require a VM log. Make sure the VM is fully shut down, then right click it in the manager UI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.
I really am going to have to insist.
frg
Posts: 88
Joined: 29. Sep 2013, 12:22

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by frg »

Semms to have an Nvidia card. I had nothing but trouble and similar problems with 6.1 and an older Thinkpad W520. Unfortunately for this one no newer drivers exists sot not sure if driver or Vbox problem.

Much older systems but same symptoms. Black screen during vm boot or it took ages to load. Try to disable the Nvidia card and see if VBox boots ok with only the Intel gfx.

If I disable the Intel card in Bios the system won't boot or better Win 10 would crash so can not test this combination.

FRG
mpack
Site Moderator
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Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

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.
fth0
Volunteer
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VBox Version: PUEL
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Location: Germany

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by fth0 »

mpack wrote:Signing problems don't make VMs slow, they make them error out
Usually this is true. Interestingly enough, I currently have a counterexample:

In the Windows host on my Lenovo T590, (at least) one of the 3D DLLs of the Intel graphics driver is rejected by the VirtualBox hardening code, leading to the Linux Mint guest running in software rendering mode. Luckily, the performance impact is small enough and doesn't matter to me.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Got the machine back from the manufacturer after they changed the motherboard.

They wiped the machine, so had to start from scratch.

Installed a new Windows XP (the smallest OS I could think of) and it loaded fast, half a minute.
Then I loaded the old VHD disk with the XP version from my old machine and it almost 10 minutes. (If anyone wonders, using the XP virtual machine for a legacy 16 bit program.)

In both cases I just started, and shut down as quickly as I could.

Including the logs, I called them NewVBox.log and OldVBox.log.

Seems that the old machine is waiting and waiting on some events...

Hope this will help us to get to the bottom of the problem.
Attachments
NewVBox.log
This is the one I created from my new machine. Works quickly with no problem
(120.92 KiB) Downloaded 12 times
OldVBox.log
This is the one I copied from my old machine. Takes forever to start.
(125.56 KiB) Downloaded 12 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by mpack »

The "new" log shows the VM booting from the install CD, making it not very useful as a basis for comparison with the other log.

Neither VM is configured well, e.g. both use 1 core and have 16MB graphics RAM. Better would be two cores and 64MB VRAM. Note however that it isn't easy to get XP to recognize a change in number of cores after installation: XP doesn't expect motherboard features to change.
sterod
Posts: 23
Joined: 30. Apr 2021, 19:08

Re: Performance issues with i7-1185G7 laptop

Post by sterod »

Just accepted the default on both so as to be able to compare. Don't understand this about booting from install CD. I installed it, entered a valid license number etc. Took 20 minutes. Then I started it from VBox. In what way can it be run from an installation CD?

Still, the interesting is the old one. Why does it take 10 minutes to load? THAT is what I am trying to find out. The new install was just to get a benchmark.
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