VirtualBox slow

amaragna · Post by **amaragna** » 27. Sep 2008, 09:20

Hello everyone.
I think there is something wrong with my Host-VirtualBox configuration.

I am actually experiencing slow virtual machine performances. Not very slow and not impossible to work, but not acceptable.

I have Ubuntu hardy, virtualbox 2.0 (but the same happened on 1.6 and on 2.0.2) and a Vista guest.
The system is a laptop (T7600 + 2GB RAM + 80GB HDD).

Originally Vista on this computer was at least 5 time faster and I am going to suppose that if I am not well configured the system, Ubuntu is too heavy or VirtualBox is not a good virtualization system.

My Vista.vdi file size is about 46,8 GB.

On the Host (Ubuntu) I have disabled print support, graphics effects and whatever seemed to me to drain performances.

So when I start up Vista(guest) and I wait for logon tasks to complete (I wait for Avira and for Skype) the system takes 100% cpu usage.

Also, for example, when I start Outlook it takes for a while (more than a minute) 100% cpu usage.

The strange thing is that on the Host I can see with gnome-system-monitor that CPU is not being used at 100% as well!

Gnome-system-monitor shows 2 cores, one at 20% of usage and the other at 100%. And every 10 seconds the two cores exchanges (one raises to 100% and other lowers to 20%).

I am not satisfied with this behaviour for I would like the host to use more CPU resources from the host, but I do not know if this is possible.

Any help, answer, will be appreciated.

Angelo Maragna

This is my Vista.xml configuration file:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.3.pre-linux' -->
<!-- Automatically converted from version '1.2-linux' -->
<!-- innotek VirtualBox Machine Configuration -->
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.3-linux">
  <Machine OSType="winvista" lastStateChange="2008-09-26T07:20:36Z" name="Vista" uuid="{830c7b4e-3479-44b4-6582-b7dd7ae0adef}" snapshotFolder="/home/amaragna/.VirtualBox/Machines/Vista/Snapshots" currentStateModified="false" aborted="true">
    <ExtraData>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/SaveMountedAtRuntime" value="yes"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastCloseAction" value="save"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastWindowPostion" value="212,96,800,652,max"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Fullscreen" value="off"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Seamless" value="off"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/AutoresizeGuest" value="on"/>
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/InfoDlgState" value="400,450,normal"/>
    </ExtraData>
    <Hardware>
      <CPU>
        <HardwareVirtEx enabled="true"/>
        <HardwareVirtExNestedPaging enabled="false"/>
        <PAE enabled="false"/>
      </CPU>
      <Memory RAMSize="1200"/>
      <Boot>
        <Order position="1" device="Floppy"/>
        <Order position="2" device="DVD"/>
        <Order position="3" device="HardDisk"/>
      </Boot>
      <Display VRAMSize="128" MonitorCount="1"/>
      <RemoteDisplay enabled="true" port="3389" authType="External" authTimeout="5000"/>
      <BIOS>
        <ACPI enabled="true"/>
        <IOAPIC enabled="false"/>
        <Logo fadeIn="true" fadeOut="true" displayTime="0"/>
        <BootMenu mode="MessageAndMenu"/>
        <TimeOffset value="0"/>
        <PXEDebug enabled="false"/>
        <IDEController type="PIIX3"/>
      </BIOS>
      <DVDDrive passthrough="false"/>
      <FloppyDrive enabled="true"/>
      <USBController enabled="true" enabledEhci="true"/>
      <SATAController enabled="true" PortCount="1" IDE0MasterEmulationPort="0" IDE0SlaveEmulationPort="1" IDE1MasterEmulationPort="2" IDE1SlaveEmulationPort="3"/>
      <Network>
        <Adapter slot="0" enabled="true" MACAddress="0800275EDE41" cable="true" speed="1000000" type="82540EM">
          <HostInterface name="vbox0"/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="1" enabled="false" MACAddress="0800278A1C69" cable="true" speed="1000000" type="82540EM">
          <NAT/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="2" enabled="false" MACAddress="0800277E3567" cable="true" speed="1000000" type="Am79C973">
          <NAT/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="3" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027981B44" cable="true" speed="1000000" type="Am79C973"/>
      </Network>
      <UART>
        <Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x3f8" IRQ="4" hostMode="Disconnected"/>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x3f8" IRQ="4" hostMode="Disconnected"/>
      </UART>
      <LPT>
        <Port slot="0" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
        <Port slot="1" enabled="false" IOBase="0x378" IRQ="4"/>
      </LPT>
      <AudioAdapter controller="AC97" driver="ALSA" enabled="true"/>
      <SharedFolders>
        <SharedFolder name="VB_SHARED" hostPath="/home/amaragna/VB_SHARED" writable="true"/>
      </SharedFolders>
      <Clipboard mode="Bidirectional"/>
      <Guest memoryBalloonSize="0" statisticsUpdateInterval="0"/>
      <GuestProperties>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Product" value="Windows Vista Business Edition" timestamp="1222326147389091000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Release" value="6.0.6001" timestamp="1222326147389292000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Version" value="" timestamp="1222326147389769000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/ServicePack" value="1" timestamp="1222326147805331000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/InstallDir" value="C:/Program Files/Sun/xVM VirtualBox Guest Additions" timestamp="1222326147973027000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Revision" value="36011" timestamp="1222326148223405000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Version" value="2.0.0" timestamp="1222326148504070000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxControl.exe" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326148782254000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxHook.dll" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326149085495000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxDisp.dll" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326149834144000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxMRXNP.dll" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326150601786000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxService.exe" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326150607234000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxTray.exe" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326151442747000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxGuest.sys" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326151705524000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxMouse.sys" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326152115370000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxSF.sys" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326152363030000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxVideo.sys" value="2.0.0r36011" timestamp="1222326152611350000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsersList" value="AMaragna" timestamp="1222362358489192000" flags=""/>
        <GuestProperty name="/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsers" value="1" timestamp="1222362358489484000" flags=""/>
      </GuestProperties>
    </Hardware>
    <HardDiskAttachments>
      <HardDiskAttachment hardDisk="{de72f55a-309d-4d18-fbad-917cf4cddb53}" bus="SATA" channel="0" device="0"/>
    </HardDiskAttachments>
  </Machine>
</VirtualBox>

jpbrown · Post by **jpbrown** » 27. Sep 2008, 13:49

I'm not going to be able to really help you improve your Vista experience, but a few things jump out at me.

First, you are comparing your Vista experience when it was installed directly on the hardware with a virtualized version. How is your experience (snappiness of your system) with Ubuntu vs Vista -- sure, not a fair comparison, but are you enjoying the experience.

Second, Vista requires lots of memory. Your laptop has 2GB RAM -- all was available to Vista when installed on the hardware, now you have only 1.2GB given to the vm -- that's got to have an impact on its ability to cache.

Third, (and perhaps someone can correct me), VBox passes only 1 CPU on to a vm (I think the multi-CPU ability is on the wishlist). So, even if you have 2 cores, only one is going to the vm. Vista installed natively on the hardware had access to both.

So, you have a number of factors that are going to say you should expect the Vista vm to run slower.

I see you have activated the use of hardware virtualization support -- that's good. About the only other thing you could do is add more memory to your laptop and then give more to the vm -- but with just 2GB on your system, you probably can't give much more to the vm without impacting the host.

Post by **TerryE** » 27. Sep 2008, 14:58

+1 on jpb's comments. Also, let your Vista VM run idle, so that task manager shows that the idle process is >90%. If you are still running 100%+ in Ubuntu then you have a spinning load problem that seems to happen quite often with Windows OSs, in particular if you are running an MPU kernel.

Do you reinstall Vista or just P2V the existing installation? This often occurs with this second case.