Windows 2000 guest hogs CPU

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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phinch
Posts: 2
Joined: 19. Oct 2009, 18:05
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: Windows 2000

Windows 2000 guest hogs CPU

Post by phinch »

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 on a Core i7 processor, with VirtualBox 3.0.6. I created a guest machine running Windows 2000 SP4, and allocated two CPU cores to the guest. Whilst everything works fine, Conky indicates that two cores are running at 100% even when Windows is idle. Windows Task Manager shows negligible utilisation as expected. The high utilisation is also confirmed by checking the CPU core temperatures - the CPU fan also starts running fast as soon as I start the guest machine. The utilisation remains unchanged if I run a CPU-intensive application on the guest.

Has anyone else observed this?

Regards, Pete
bluegroper
Posts: 50
Joined: 22. Dec 2008, 08:14
Primary OS: FreeBSD
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windozes, Linuxes, BSD's
Location: Would rather be swimming.

Re: Windows 2000 guest hogs CPU

Post by bluegroper »

Pete
I'm running a fresh install of Windoze 2K SP4 inside VB 3.0.8 on PCLinuxOS 2009 host.
Using just single processor for guest, since it prolly makes no difference to windoze anyway.
CPU utilisation is low (<5% for each core when idle), and CPU temp is low too.
Athlon 5050e with TDP of 45 watts warmed to only 42.0°C when being used as usual desktop.
Perhaps something out of place with your kit ?
phinch
Posts: 2
Joined: 19. Oct 2009, 18:05
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: Windows 2000

Re: Windows 2000 guest hogs CPU

Post by phinch »

I'm pretty confident that my setup is OK. The one major difference between us is that you have only allocated one core to W2K. I'll try creating a VM along those lines and see if utilisation comes back down. Incidentally W2K does benefit from dual cores - in the days of the Pentium 3 I ran a dual processor machine. When I upgraded to a single P4 the PC was appreciably less responsive when running several concurrent applications, despite being quicker when running a single CPU intensive app.
Thanks for the pointers. Regards, Pete
bluegroper
Posts: 50
Joined: 22. Dec 2008, 08:14
Primary OS: FreeBSD
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windozes, Linuxes, BSD's
Location: Would rather be swimming.

Re: Windows 2000 guest hogs CPU [NOT]

Post by bluegroper »

I'm trying this VBox with 2 CPU's working in WindoZe guest.
Also
VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled
Nested Paging: Enabled
As expected, I can't notice any difference using guest OS with 1 CPU or 2 CPU's.
Also, the CPUs usage remains real low.
When there's just Linux host, KDE, VirtualBox, and Windoze2K guest running, the CPU usage reported by kima gets as low as 0% or 1%, for BOTH CPU's.
HTH
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