[Solved] Very slow speed for VM I/O
Posted: 9. Aug 2019, 03:38
I am using VirtualBox 5.2.32 on a Windows 10/64-bit system with a Windows XP VM to run a number of 16-bit programs that won't run under W10 (they run in a cmd.exe box on the virtual XP machine). Speeds are VERY slow when some programs are performing a lot of I/O. Something that takes a few seconds with native WXP, takes several minutes with the virtual XP machine. Similarly, MS-Word "Select all > F9 (perform calculations)" takes much longer with the virtual machine, as do several other I/O intensive 32-bit programs.
I've tried to speed it up as follows:
• Increasing "base memory" from 1024MB to 3584Mb didn’t help. More than that (with 128MB video memory) prevents the virtual machine from loading. But 1024MB works fine with a W10 (332-bit) or Linux Mint (64-bit) host.
• Enabling I/O APIC didn't help
• Can’t select multiple processors (option is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host!)
• Can’t enable VT-x/AMD-V (Acceleration tab is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host, which do have it selected!)
• Can’t enable Nested Paging (Acceleration tab is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host, which do have it selected!)
• Increasing the display memory to 128MB didn’t help
• Enabling 3D Acceleration and/or 2D Video Acceleration didn't help
• Unchecking "Use Host I/O cache" made no difference
• Checking "Solid-state drive" made no difference, even though the .VDI file is stored on a SSD
• Excluding c:\VirtualMachines from Defender scan didn’t help, nor did disabling Avira in the VM
• Turning off indexing (in the virtual machine) didn’t help
• Defragmenting the virtual hard disk (in the virtual machine) didn't help
• Changing the power plan (in the host machine) to "high-performance" didn't help
Any other suggestions?
(Note that this does not happen with VirtualBox 5.2.32 on a Windows 10 32-bit system, or VirtualBox 5.2.32 on a Linux Mint 64-bit system with the identical Windows XP VM, but the same anomaly does occur with VirtualBox 6.0.10 on a Windows 10 64-bit system!)
SOLVED 08/11/2019: After reading viewtopic.php?f=1&t=62339, and following those suggestions, I discovered that Virtualization was not enabled in the BIOS of my new motherboard. Enabling it solved the problem.
Many thanks to Mpack and Socrates.
I've tried to speed it up as follows:
• Increasing "base memory" from 1024MB to 3584Mb didn’t help. More than that (with 128MB video memory) prevents the virtual machine from loading. But 1024MB works fine with a W10 (332-bit) or Linux Mint (64-bit) host.
• Enabling I/O APIC didn't help
• Can’t select multiple processors (option is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host!)
• Can’t enable VT-x/AMD-V (Acceleration tab is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host, which do have it selected!)
• Can’t enable Nested Paging (Acceleration tab is greyed out on x64 host, but not on x32 or Linux host, which do have it selected!)
• Increasing the display memory to 128MB didn’t help
• Enabling 3D Acceleration and/or 2D Video Acceleration didn't help
• Unchecking "Use Host I/O cache" made no difference
• Checking "Solid-state drive" made no difference, even though the .VDI file is stored on a SSD
• Excluding c:\VirtualMachines from Defender scan didn’t help, nor did disabling Avira in the VM
• Turning off indexing (in the virtual machine) didn’t help
• Defragmenting the virtual hard disk (in the virtual machine) didn't help
• Changing the power plan (in the host machine) to "high-performance" didn't help
Any other suggestions?
(Note that this does not happen with VirtualBox 5.2.32 on a Windows 10 32-bit system, or VirtualBox 5.2.32 on a Linux Mint 64-bit system with the identical Windows XP VM, but the same anomaly does occur with VirtualBox 6.0.10 on a Windows 10 64-bit system!)
SOLVED 08/11/2019: After reading viewtopic.php?f=1&t=62339, and following those suggestions, I discovered that Virtualization was not enabled in the BIOS of my new motherboard. Enabling it solved the problem.
Many thanks to Mpack and Socrates.