virtualbox.org

Widows XP guest (fully up to date) in Intrepid host, after latest (2.12) update CPU is running at 70% to 90% for 5 minutes after startup, settling down to 17% to 25%, with no applications running. Opening applications like Vuescan and turning on Plustec (USB) scanner then cpu runs at 50% to 60%. Ditto CS4 or Lightroom (without any USB devices running). The previous (2,1) version had highish CPU usage but I could live with it. VirtuBox is now unusable.
VBox settings
base memory = 1000mb (total m/c memory = 4 gb)
video memory = 12mb
disc size = 35gb (total M/C HD size = 500gb)
acpi = enabled
USB = 4 devices
Machine is Dell Dimension 5000 with Pentium 4 single core processor.
Any thoughts please,

I am seeing the same thing. I have a Ubuntu 8.10 host running an XP guest that was working very well under 2.1.0 (and 2.0.4 before that).

Since the upgrade to 2.1.2 it has become extremely sluggish, and various tasks take turns hogging the cpu within the vm.

I have no USB devices enabled, the VM has 768MB of RAM and one shared folder. ACPI is enabled. This is on a 1.83GZ Centrino/Pentium M (single core).

I don't know what it means, but I removed the 2.1.2 Guest Additions, and the VM seemed much faster. Then I reinstalled them, and it went back to sluggish. Just a simple run of Outlook causes it to take 80% of the CPU (and no, this is not normal).

I don't know if this means something is wrong with the additions, or it's just accessing something within VBox that is causing this issue.

If I can find the 2.1.0 additions I will try them.

Thanks.

Yeah, I experienced a general sluggishness to 2.1.2, un-installed it and re-installed 2.1.0. I've still got the same guest tools installed as I had with 2.1.2, but it is running fine. Ubuntu Intrepid, Pentium M 1.86 GHz laptop. Not sure what features 2.1.2 adds, but they definitely don't seem worth it, when it is so much slower.

I went up to 2.1.2 from a very old 1.x version. I saw immediate issues. I downloaded the 2.1.0 additions and saw performance go back to normal (or close enough I couldn't tell).

The older version of Additions can be found at:

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.1.0/

Re additions, made no difference to my set-up, I ran for a few days on the previous (2.1.1) guest additions, then upgraded, same CPU usage. This appears to be a fairly common problem and it's surprising that there is no workaround.