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High cpu load on winxp with vbox and fedora6 inside

Posted: 16. Mar 2009, 20:28
by aik
I've got a VMWARE disk image which I used for a machine running under VBox.
Almost everything is fine - I managed to configure network and video, but what I cannot fix is high CPU load. No matter what is running inside/outside VBox, the host always detects pretty high CPU load. By the same time the "top" utility in Fedora shows maximum 3% of CPU load.
I did:
1. set for VirtualBox.exe affinity to CPU#1 and priority to "low".
2. added "divider=10" to the Fedora kernel parameters in /boot/grub/grub.conf
The result is in the picture attached.

My config - laptop IBM T60, 2GB RAM, no swap, Winxpsp2, VBox 2.1.4, guest OS is Fedora6 updated maaaany times up to 2.6.22.14-72.fc6.

What would the community suggest in order to reduce CPU load?

ps. can VBox minimize to tray?

Re: High cpu load on winxp with vbox and fedora6 inside

Posted: 16. Mar 2009, 20:35
by vbox4me2
Did you remove the vmware guest additions and installed the vbox guest additions?

Re: High cpu load on winxp with vbox and fedora6 inside

Posted: 16. Mar 2009, 21:07
by aik
Guess so. I stopped vmvare-tools service and reconfigured x.org and network.
The "service --status-all" shows that vmware-guestd is stopped.
btw I just noticed - if to start another box with the MCP Linux (originally installed under vbox) inside while the first box is running, both boxes load CPU 0-5%, not more.
However the only box with MCP linux loads CPU a little. So the problem is in Fedora+vmware-tools.
I uninstalled the vmware-tools but the issue remains.
The main difference I see between 2 Linux'es is the kernel version - 2.6.22.14-72.fc6 vs. 2.6.16.46-196-smp.

Re: High cpu load on winxp with vbox and fedora6 inside

Posted: 16. Mar 2009, 22:00
by vbox4me2
It has been discussed before that if one vm is having a high cpu load, a second vm, even doing nothing, would solve this. Personally I haven't seen this with VM's installed in vbox running alone. I haven't used migrated linux VM's yet, only windows and thats always been a kernel issue. A simple guess, recompile the kernel and reinstall GA ?

Re: High cpu load on winxp with vbox and fedora6 inside

Posted: 1. Jul 2009, 18:39
by aik
Update. I created empty "msdos" machine with CD boot, set no CD, so it could not boot and hang. And I ran-and-kept-hang this machine every time I wanted to work with the original fedora machine. It worked out perfectly - no load. Until VirtualBox version 3.0 came out. Now it's no matter how many machines are running around (0, 1, 2) my "broken" one, the "broken" machine eats CPU totally.
What does it tell us? :)