CPU 100% usage but not RAM

[docaz]

I have "virtualized" my previous XP Home system and put it on VB on a Vista 64 bit system.
I have 8gigs of memory on the host and allocated about 2 gigs to the VM.

The system is very slow because the CPU usage is almost constantly at 100% and the memory does not go to more than 1/2 gig usage (not eve close to the 2 gigs allocated).
I have tried all functions and was not able to come up with a solution. An idle system running simultaneously does not fix the issue.
I have a AMD Phenom quad processor but can not make the multiple processor being recognized (this could be a windows home problem but I am not sure).

Suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[vbox4me2]

Sounds like a kernal problem, if this is a P2V converted xp there might be drivers and such for stuff that isn't there anymore. Look with processexplorer whats eating cpu.

[Sasquatch]

There are dozens of 100% CPU usage topics here. Please consult one of those. Use the search trick in the Forum Posting Guide to find them.
It doesn't matter if you installed it fresh, or converted your own physical install to a virtual one, both cases have this problem.

[docaz]

There are dozens of 100% CPU usage topics here. Please consult one of those. Use the search trick in the Forum Posting Guide to find them.
It doesn't matter if you installed it fresh, or converted your own physical install to a virtual one, both cases have this problem.

I did see a few posts but none of them discussed the issue that RAM is not used. The point is about the CPU but also why does the system not use the allocated memory?
By the way, I could not find a good solution, so is this a problem that I can do something about it, or is VB working on it and I should be patient?
Thanks.

[docaz]

Sounds like a kernal problem, if this is a P2V converted xp there might be drivers and such for stuff that isn't there anymore. Look with processexplorer whats eating cpu.

I looked in the process explorer and there was nothing out of the ordinary. It is frustrating because I have a powerful processor with a good amount of RAM and unfortunately I can not transfer the "muscles" to the VM.

[docaz]

I noticed one more remarkable thing after adding an xp dual boot to my machine:

I have the VM on a second hardrive and can access it from from both partitions of a dualboot system with a vista home premium 64 bit and an XP pro.

On the XP I assigned 4 processors and the VM shows the processors and the CPU usage is not constantly at 100% but still relatively slow compared to a physical machine and only utilizing a fraction of the RAM assigned.

The exact same VM accessed from the vista home premium 64bit boot partition is running constantly on 100% and does not show 4 processors in the performance screen of the Windows Task Manager.

[fixedwheel]

for the XP guest not recognizing more than one CPU read here http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19878

BTW, i would not give all 4 cores to the guest, leave al least one for the host

I have "virtualized" my previous XP Home system and put it on VB on a Vista 64 bit system.

the XP Home is probably 32bit?

I have a AMD Phenom quad processor

read the manual, chapter 13 "Known limitations"

• The following Guest SMP (multiprocessor) limitations exist:
– Bad performance with 32-bit guests on AMD CPUs. This affects mainly
Windows and Solaris guests, but possibly also some Linux kernel revisions.
– 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts do not support SMP yet (except on Mac OS
X).

[docaz]

for the XP guest not recognizing more than one CPU read here http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19878

BTW, i would not give all 4 cores to the guest, leave al least one for the host

I have "virtualized" my previous XP Home system and put it on VB on a Vista 64 bit system.

the XP Home is probably 32bit?

I have a AMD Phenom quad processor

read the manual, chapter 13 "Known limitations"

• The following Guest SMP (multiprocessor) limitations exist:
– Bad performance with 32-bit guests on AMD CPUs. This affects mainly
Windows and Solaris guests, but possibly also some Linux kernel revisions.
– 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts do not support SMP yet (except on Mac OS
X).

You are absolutely right, the guest XP home is a 32bit.
What is interesting that the same guest performs differently on the vista 64 bit than on the XP 32 bit host.
Also, the USB functionality is much better on the XP32 bit and is essentially impossible on the vista 64 bit.
I do not care for vista that much anyway and run for the most time my machine in the XP boot.

Regarding the cores, I have changed the host to 2 cores and I really do not see much of a difference. Is there an "ideal" setting for multicore?

The fact that it is a known issue, does that mean that it may be fixed or will I have to live with it?
Thanks a lot for your reply

[Sasquatch]

For the RAM thing, open your task manager and put it on the Performance tab, so you see the RAM usage. Now fire up your VM and when it's done loading, you will see an increase of RAM usage. This RAM usage is NOT shown in the process tab. Windows somehow fails to note that. I don't know about Process Explorer though, but could be the same.

Did you install 3.0.2 yet? It should have some performance fixes for SMP.

[docaz]

For the RAM thing, open your task manager and put it on the Performance tab, so you see the RAM usage. Now fire up your VM and when it's done loading, you will see an increase of RAM usage. This RAM usage is NOT shown in the process tab. Windows somehow fails to note that. I don't know about Process Explorer though, but could be the same.

Did you install 3.0.2 yet? It should have some performance fixes for SMP.

I did install the 3.0.2.
I was looking at the Performance tab in the Task manager and in the VM the RAM usage never goes above a fraction (about 300- 600 mb) of the allocated RAM.
I did also look at the performance tab of the host and started doing some functions in the VM. The processor usage (of the host) increased and the RAM or PF usage stayed the same. It appears that once the VM is started the RAM of the VM is well separated from the RAM of the host.

In any case the problem is that essentially even if I allocated a 2-4 gigs of RAM to the guest, it only utilizes a fraction of it and it behaves like an underpowered system.
Is that supposed to be like that?

[vbox4me2]

In any case the problem is that essentially even if I allocated a 2-4 gigs of RAM to the guest, it only utilizes a fraction of it and it behaves like an underpowered system.
Is that supposed to be like that?

Apart from vista, yes this is normal ram usage behaviour.

[docaz]

In any case the problem is that essentially even if I allocated a 2-4 gigs of RAM to the guest, it only utilizes a fraction of it and it behaves like an underpowered system.
Is that supposed to be like that?

Apart from vista, yes this is normal ram usage behaviour.

Thanks for the reply.
Do you know if that will possibly change in the future?
My hope was that by having adequate amount of memory available, the VM would perform like a physical but now it appears that this can not be the case, no matter how much memory I allocate to the VM.

[Sasquatch]

Once the VM is booted, the allocated memory should start to be addressed for the VM and be fully accessible for the Guest OS.

[docaz]

Once the VM is booted, the allocated memory should start to be addressed for the VM and be fully accessible for the Guest OS.

That is exactly the problem that it is not fully used by the guest. Like I mentioned, I allocated about 2 gigs but the guest never utilizes more than about 600megs and most of the time it is in the 300 megs range. I would not care how much it uses but some applications which are RAM intensive run rather slow because of that.

[vbox4me2]

You can't solve this as it isn't a problem, if a OS needs 600mb and its there it will grab it, if there is 1tb of ram the OS won't touch it until it needs more. Allocating 4gb ram to any OS does NOT mean it will use all of it, it only uses what it needs not what you want it to use. (vista being the exception here)