Starting Centos 5 VM reboots Win 7 host

[DavidA]

Hi

I am running VirtualBox 4.0.4 on a Windows 7 32-bit laptop.

I have created a Centos 5.5 64-bit VM. I was in the middle of a 'yum update' when the laptop spontaneously rebooted.

Now the laptop reboots whenever I start the VM.

Please will someone suggest how I should deal with this problem?

Best regards

David

[Sasquatch]

Update the BIOS. It sounds like there is a bug in it for accessing VT-x/AMD-V. This causes the reboot. If you can prevent a direct reboot and capture the BSOD that's generated (I think that's the case), you will know more too. Disable automatic restart on system failure in System Properties of Windows.

[DavidA]

Hi

Update the BIOS. It sounds like there is a bug in it for accessing VT-x/AMD-V. This causes the reboot. If you can prevent a direct reboot and capture the BSOD that's generated (I think that's the case), you will know more too. Disable automatic restart on system failure in System Properties of Windows.

Thanks very much for your reply.

The affected machine is a new laptop and has a very recent BIOS version. I checked the latest version and the release notes do not mention fixes for VT-x/AMD-V.

I have now unticked 'Automatically restart' in System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings as suggested.

I'll wait to see if that gives more information and will then consider upgrading the BIOS anyway.

BR

David

[DavidA]

Hi

I have updated to the latest HP BIOS (released Jan 2011) and set Windows not to automatically restart on fatal error, but the laptop has again spontaneously rebooted while running the VM.

Any suggestions as to what to do next please?

David

[Sasquatch]

Since the problem is with a 64 bit VM, it's a shame you can't disable VT-x/AMD-V to see if that helps, because it's required for 64 bit guests. What you can try is install the 32 bit equivalent with the exact same settings and see how that goes. If it crashes the Host too, turn off VT-x and try again. If the machine keeps running, you know the cause of the problem and you have to wait until HP fixes it.

[DavidA]

Hi

Thanks for your help. I will try building and running a 32-bit VM as you suggest.

David

[Technologov]

In addition, you may have conflicting software installed on your Win7 host.

Do you have any special network software installed, or any virtualization technologies installed, besides VirtualBox?

[DavidA]

Hi

I have no other virtualization technologies installed. McAfee anti-virus is running on the Win 7 host.

I enabled kdump but no kernel dump gets written on the crash.

I have increased the VM memory from 512M to 1024M, but its too early to tell whether that has made a difference. Could too little memory cause such a reboot?

BR

David

[Technologov]

>Could too little memory cause such a reboot?
No, but some conflicting software or driver could.

[DavidA]

Hi

To recap my problem, I have built 32-bit and 64-bit Centos 5.5 VMs and run them on HP ProBook 6450b laptops with 32-bit Win 7 and 64-bit Win 7 host os's.

On 32-bit Win 7 host, 32-bit Centos guest runs ok but 64-bit Centos guest crashes randomly (sometimes after as much as a few hours).
On 64-bit Win 7 host, 64-bit Centos guest is rock solid.

In both cases, VT-x/AMD-V is enabled. The two host machines may have slightly different drivers as one is newer than the other, but both were bought this year.

On a NEC desktop (Intel Dual Core Processor, 'Intel Virtualization' technology) the 64-bit guest os runs on 32-bit Windows XP solidly.

Is it likely that the difference of host o/s is really causing the difference in reliability?

The HP Probook 6450b has an Intel i5 processor and Mobile Intel QM57 Express or HM57 Express chipset.

Any suggestions for a way forward please?

BR

David

[Sasquatch]

Really check the BIOS version. Get the drivers on 32 bit W7 up to the same level as your 64 bit W7 Host. Then see if that helps.

[DavidA]

Really check the BIOS version. Get the drivers on 32 bit W7 up to the same level as your 64 bit W7 Host. Then see if that helps.

Well, I 'downgraded' the Win7 64-bit host to Win7 32-bit and my 64-bit Centos guest VM now crashes on that machine also. Therefore, using latest drivers does not help.

Any other ideas please, or should I give up at this stage?

BR

David

[Sasquatch]

I told you to update the 32 bit drivers to match the 64 bit version. Not the other way around what you did. You just showed that it's a driver related issue, so get the version you had on your 64 bit Host and fix that situation. Then you can focus on the 32 bit environment to match the same driver version.
Worst case is you're reinstalling the Hosts to fix your driver issue.

[DavidA]

I told you to update the 32 bit drivers to match the 64 bit version. Not the other way around what you did. You just showed that it's a driver related issue, so get the version you had on your 64 bit Host and fix that situation. Then you can focus on the 32 bit environment to match the same driver version.
Worst case is you're reinstalling the Hosts to fix your driver issue.

Sorry, but I think you have misunderstood. I probably did not make myself clear. Here are my steps:

1) Centos 64-bit VM crashes on 'older' ProBook, which uses Win 7 32-bit as host o/s.
2) Centos 64-bit VM is stable on 'newer' ProBook, which uses Win 7 64-bit as host o/s.
3) Centos 64-bit VM crashes on 'newer' ProBook, when host o/s 'downgraded' to Win 7 32-bit.

So, when the 'newer' laptop has the latest drivers but Win 7 32-bit o/s, Centos 64-bit crashes on it. Therefore, I think the issue cannot be fixed by upgrading to latest drivers.

The other information, which I mentioned previously, is that the Centos 64-bit VM runs fine on Win XP 32-bit host, on an NEC desktop.

Does that make it clearer?

Thanks for your replies.

BR

David

[guigeng]

My Thinkpad t410i
Host win 7 32bit
Guest ubuntu server 10.04 64bit
The host reboot radom.