virtualbox.org

I'm in the process of moving to new laptops. So I decided to keep my old laptops as VMs on the new laptops.

I successfully moved one XP laptop to a new Win7 laptop using VMware Converter and VirtualBox.

On the second laptop I had to use an older version of VMware converter (3.0.3) to convert the physical laptop to a VM. I then created a new VM on my second Win7 laptop using VirtualBox. This time it appears to work, but it is REALLY SLOW. I have been able to reactivate windows XP and install the guest tools but it takes forever.

I would appreciate some help tracking down the source of the slowness and suggested solutions.

I'm happy to provide whatever other details might be needed to diagnose the issue. Just me know what would be helpful.

Thanks

Any help? Please!

No help? No suggestions? I'm sure someone in the community can help me.

How much has to do with the P2V conversion and ho much has to do with setting up the new VM?

It's hard to provide advice about something as subjective as the speed of the VM, especially since you provided very little information. Network config problems can cause slow startups, not giving the VM enough memory can make it run slowly. Antivirus apps can be CPU hogs. Since you did a P2V you took all your old baggage with you, possibly including a fragmented drive. Have you tried looking at the process list in the guests task manager to see who the mem/cpu hogs are?

How much memory did you give to the VM?

Did you check Device Manager for broken devices?

Thanks for the reply mpack.

I want to give relevant information but I don't really know what is relevant.

The slowness is apparent immediately as Windows attempts to boot.

You mention Network config. I tried both NAT and Bridged with no apparent change. Network is accessible on vm.
I gave the vm 1024mb memory. IO APIC is enabled. Before doing the P2V conversion I did considerable disk cleanup and chkdisk and defrag.

The source machine for the VM had a dual core. I used VMWare converter 3.0.3 to make the conversion and it did not have any setting to select number of processors like the current versions does (but that version did not work). I noticed on Virtual box that I cannot select anything but one processor. Could there be a problem here?

I will uninstall Norton Internet Security for now to make sure it isn't an issue. No hardware conflicts are evident but I will also do more checking. I'll also check the processes and get back with you.

drewmister wrote:You mention Network config. I tried both NAT and Bridged with no apparent change. Network is accessible on vm.

I was thinking of things like network shares (drives and printers) that were configured on the old system prior to the P2V and now no longer exist, ditto for host and guest now in different workgroups. Networking issues like that can slow down the boot.

drewmister wrote:I gave the vm 1024mb memory. IO APIC is enabled.

How much RAM does the host have?

Did you install the guest additions? And uninstall any VMWare guest software?

IO APIC enabled can impact performance. Unfortunately, getting rid of it can be tricky (requires you to change HAL dlls in Windows). You can search the site using google for info on how to do that.

All of my XP VMs use a single processor and run well.

mpack wrote:I was thinking of things like network shares (drives and printers) that were configured on the old system prior to the P2V and now no longer exist, ditto for host and guest now in different workgroups. Networking issues like that can slow down the boot.

All networked drives and printers have been either removed or updated.

mpack wrote:How much RAM does the host have?

My host has 4GB of RAM

mpack wrote:Did you install the guest additions? And uninstall any VMWare guest software?

Yes

mpack wrote:All of my XP VMs use a single processor and run well.

Where the XP VMs originally multi-processor? My original physical machine had two processors. My host machine has two processors. Yet my VM is running 1 processor (Virtualbox will not allow me to set it to 2). The HAL used in the VM is the ACPI Multiprocessor PC. These seem to contradict. Is this a problem?

drewmister wrote:

mpack wrote:All of my XP VMs use a single processor and run well.

Were the XP VMs originally multi-processor?

I have a mix of XPs, some P2V'd from an original single core install, others were fresh installs... but I think I had a single core processor at the time I installed them as well, sometime in 2008. I prefer to keep the VM basic - not using VT-x or IO-APIC, so perhaps that has an influence.

drewmister wrote:My host machine has two processors. Yet my VM is running 1 processor (Virtualbox will not allow me to set it to 2). The HAL used in the VM is the ACPI Multiprocessor PC. These seem to contradict. Is this a problem?

I'm no expert on that subject, but I seem to recall others having problems. You could try cloning the VM (to give you a copy to experiment with), then try changing the HAL - how to do that has been described elsewhere on this site (try googling for it).

I should also mention that my host XP Pro was also a P2P Acronis migration from an older single core PC, and it also runs great on a dual core processor (using both cores when the software permits).

Try one of these:

• Disable the Windows firewall in the XP guest (there is apparently a bug in VirtualBox that causes high CPU a while after it starts)
• Make sure you have the Guest Additions installed (there is a known problem with multi-processor guests which is sometimes fixed by a Guest Addition workaround: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4392)
• Reconfigure your XP host OOPS GUEST to use only one CPU: the non-IO APIC HAL.
  Google for HALu for a program to change the XP HAL, and change it to 'Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC'

Well, well... this thread has turned out to be quite useful for me too.

First, I've now become aware that I'm using the basic "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" on my host PC, and in all but one of my VMs - the only exception being one which is a P2V of my old home PC.

The latter is the only VM of mine which required the IO APIC setting to be enabled in order to boot. I just successfully used the HALu tool referenced by Marks link to change the HAL in that VM to the same basic HAL (*) used in all my other installs, and now that VM successfully boots with the IO APIC setting turned off.

A bigger question for me is, just what is the benefit of running with a multiprocessor HAL? The benefit is not that XP can't utilitize both cores without it, otherwise I would have noticed it before now (the difference when multiple cores are in use is quite obvious, i.e. run a CPU-hogging app and the PC remains responsive). The only obvious (to me) difference is that task manager shows stats for more than one CPU.

(*) What I did ignored the advice in that thread, which recommends the multiprocessor HAL.

mpack wrote:First, I've now become aware that I'm using the basic "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" on my host PC...

My guess would be: No you're not!

Please can you: In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and select hal.dll
Right-click and select Properties...
Click on the 'Version' tab.
Click on 'Original File Name' in the list and read back the Value?

The 'Original File Name' value maps to the HAL used as follows:
ACPI multiprocessor computer = Halmacpi.dll
ACPI uniprocessor computer = Halaacpi.dll
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) computer = Halacpi.dll
MPS multiprocessor computer = Halmps.dll
MPS uniprocessor computer = Halapic.dll
Standard computer = Hal.dll
Compaq SystemPro multiprocessor or 100% compatible = Halsp.dll

If you have manually EXPAND.EXE'ed a different HAL when you P2P'ed your host, then what the registry(?) thinks the HAL is, and what the HAL actually is, are out of sync.

Do the same for C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Multiprocessor kernel = ntkrnlmp.exe
Uniprocessor kernel = ntoskrnl.exe

On host XP SP2, original filename of hal.dll is "halacpi.dll". Original filename for "ntoskrnl.exe" is "ntoskrnl.exe". It seems to be exactly what the "Computer" properties in Device Manager says it is.

mpack wrote:On host XP SP2, original filename of hal.dll is "halacpi.dll". Original filename for "ntoskrnl.exe" is "ntoskrnl.exe". It seems to be exactly what the "Computer" properties in Device Manager says it is.

My next guess would be that you are actually not using both cores of your CPU...

Perhaps try this (I just did this now):
- Download the trial version of PassMark PerformanceTest and run the CPU tests (menu: Tests>CPU>All)
- Download some baselines created by other people with the same processor as you (menu: Baseline>Install Baseline from web...>Find Same CPU>Select 4 or 5 that have the same Speed column (avoid overclocked or underclocked)>Download>Exit
- Compare those baselines with your CPU (menu: Baselines>Select Baselines>select those you downloaded>OK)
Are you about level with the other baselines, or half?

For an unrelated search, I found this: http://osdev.berlios.de/pic.html

Summary
The APIC's provide a mechanism that is required in a multiprocessor system necessary for interprocessor communication. They also contain convienient features for uniprocessor systems as well.

Sounds dubious to me. I doubt than an n-core processor needs an external chip in order for the cores to work. Any true multi-CPU system will need mechanisms for data bus arbitration and so forth, but these would be built into a multi-core CPU.