[Solved] Enabling network freezes Win 10 32bit guest in Win 10 64bit host

[Bizzy]

Hi

I have Win 10 Home 32bit guest within Win 10 Pro 64bit host.

The guest OS freezes - usually within seconds after booting completes. I have deduced that the problem only occurs when network adapter is enabled. The problem occurs on both NAT and Bridged Adapter.

I am new to VB so any advice on how to resolve this issue much appreciated.

[mpack]

With the VM fully shut down, right click it in the GUI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.

[Bizzy]

Thanks very much for taking the time to consider my problem mpack.

Today I ran the guest with NAT enabled. It actually worked for about 20 minutes before the inevitable freeze.

Log attached.

[mpack]

00:00:04.038012 supR3HardenedErrorV: supR3HardenedScreenImage/NtCreateSection: rc=VERR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT fImage=1 fProtect=0x5 fAccess=0x2 \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Windows\System32\drivers\atikmdag.sys:
00:00:04.038593 supR3HardenedErrorV: supR3HardenedScreenImage/NtCreateSection: cached rc=VERR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT fImage=1 fProtect=0x2 fAccess=0x5 cHits=1 \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Windows\System32\drivers\atikmdag.sys

I would suggest that you look for updates for your ATI graphics drivers.

00:00:02.994370 File system of 'D:\Win 10.vdi' is ntfs

What type of drive is D? Why is "Win 10.vdi" not in the VM folder?

00:00:04.121942 RamSize <integer> = 0x000000017ea00000 (6 419 382 272, 6 122 MB, 5.9 GB)

A 32bit Windows cannot use more than 4GB RAM, so giving it this amount of RAM is simply wasting 2GB.

00:00:04.121938 NumCPUs <integer> = 0x0000000000000004 (4)
...
00:00:04.790487 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4

Despite the marketing, yours is a 4 core CPU. You cannot allocate all of your cores to the VM and expect the host to always run smoothly. Note that VirtualBox itself is a host application which requires CPU time. You should be allocating no more than 2 cores to the VM.

Let's see what happens after the above is corrected. I do need that explanation of the D drive: an external drive can have a severe performance impact if it's the wrong kind of drive.

[Bizzy]

Hi mpack

I systematically implemented and tested all of your suggestions.

The one which fixed the problem was moving the .vdi file to the default VM folder. The Win 10 VM just ran for 2 hours without a hitch.

So thanks a million for resolving my problem.

[mpack]

Good. Thanks for reporting back.

Re the topic title, I see no way enabling the network connection could directly cause this problem, so I'm guessing that the cause was indirect, e.g. having a network connection perhaps implies increased disk activity for internet data in the temp folder.