Guest running super slow

[Lukehughes]

Hey guys, I'm having the exact same problem if anyone has found a solution or cause yet?
I've run the exact same Virtualbox and Win7 guest on 2 other (older, slightly less powerful Macs) without a drama at all.
Now on a brand new iMac with higher specs, I cannot get the host to run well at all.... The program I use (which is the only reason I use windows at all) is unusable due to extreme lag.
Task Manager shows very low system usage....
Seems to be a graphics driver issue?
Ill attach a log if it helps?

Win7 VirtualBox Log.zip

(26.54 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

[socratis]

I'm having the exact same problem

You, and everyone else that's running Windows. Let it work on whatever it's doing. You would see the same behavior on a physical computer as well.

[Lukehughes]

No. Definitely not the case. I found a workaround using Remote Desktop on the same machine from the host side and it works perfectly. It’s a display driver issue.

[socratis]

Can you provide some more evidence if you can please?

[ubcadmin]

I'm having the exact same problem

You, and everyone else that's running Windows. Let it work on whatever it's doing. You would see the same behavior on a physical computer as well.

I manage 50+ physical Windows desktops and three other Win 7 virtual machines, so I'm quite familiar with letting Windows churn for a while until things settle down. This is, however, not the case here. It's not normal to take 45 minutes to install GA, 5 minutes for the Windows menu to appear after clicking on the logo, etc.

[mpack]

Go to the Windows Task Manager, go to the Details tab. Make sure that you show all running tasks. Make sure that the visible columns includes CPU, I/O reads and I/O writes. Look for which tasks have the highest scores in all of the latter categories, and especially at tasks for which the scores are ramping up.

[ubcadmin]

CPU

Screen Shot 2018-09-13 at 13.10.08.png (111.34 KiB) Viewed 3770 times

I/O Reads

Screen Shot 2018-09-13 at 13.10.59.png (114.29 KiB) Viewed 3770 times

I/O Writes

Screen Shot 2018-09-13 at 13.11.15.png (115.83 KiB) Viewed 3770 times

[mpack]

There seems to be a misunderstanding. I was not offering to provide Windows technical support, I only gave you guidance on what to look for. I do see several things in those screenshots which obviously could bear investigation.

[ubcadmin]

The misunderstanding seems to flow both ways. My VM was working fine before I moved it to a different host. How could it be a problem with my guest OS, when the exact same VM worked fine on the other machine? Isn't the point of virtualization that the guest doesn't care about the platform on which it runs? It seems to me that there is a problem with something in virtualbox on the new host causing the slowdown.

From the sound of things I need to move to VMware as a virtualization platform.

[mpack]

That's entirely your decision. This is a user forum, so none of us have a stake in your choices.

[ubcadmin]

I've been working with this problem from time to time, and have been experimenting with some of the premade Windows VMs for IE development. I downloaded the Win10 VM and it had the exact same slowness problem that my current Win10Pro VM did. Extreme lag and high CPU usage. I then tried a Win7 premade VM and it works great! One difference I've noticed is that the Win7 VM is 32bit and the others I've tried are 64bit. Could that be affecting things? Could there be something on my host or VBox settings that is causing 64bit VMs to run in emulation rather than directly in the hardware?

[socratis]

I have both 32 and 64-bit, Win7/8.1/10. I've never seen anything like you're describing. What's interesting is that you say that you see this behavior on the pre-made VMs. Don't know what to tell you...

[ubcadmin]

I should add that I had to run a patched installer for macOS High Sierra to get it to run on my Mac Pro (2008). My understanding is that the only thing that the patch did was remove the platform check from the install process and add some custom drivers to get a few hardware bits working with the newer macOS. My system is running great - I added some RAM and installed an SSD with SATA3 using a PCIe adapter. The only problem has been getting my VMs to work properly.

All of the software that I need to use in Windows runs in Win 7 just as well as Win 10. I suppose I could just downgrade my guest OS as a workaround.

[socratis]

Whoa! Are we talking about a "hacked" OSX installation here? An OSX which Apple wouldn't let you install on your computer? Tsk, tsk, tsk... I'm afraid all bets are off, you're on your own.

And not because "it runs fine". But because you're familiar, I assume, with how strict Apple is with their OS and the word "backwards compatibility" isn't in their vocabulary. Who's to tell that some optimizations in a key system library were done, optimizations that do not include your specific CPU model? Or the graphics drivers? Or... or... or...

I can only give advice for supported setups. Yours isn't one.

[ubcadmin]

Whoa! Are we talking about a "hacked" OSX installation here?

I think "hacked" might a strong term. I prefer to think of it as "modified".

Who's to tell that some optimizations in a key system library were done, optimizations that do not include your specific CPU model? Or the graphics drivers?

I was coming to the same conclusions myself. I had even considered reverting back to the latest supported macOS for my system, but my current setup is working sooooo well...

I can only give advice for supported setups. Yours isn't one.

Fair enough. I'll probably just stick to what I've found out works - i.e. Win7 32bit.