Windows 7 cpu at 30% all the time

[casolorz]

We got a bunch of Windows 7 vms started. They were only started and doing nothing, but their CPU graph in Windows is at 30% or so, with an almost perfect straight line. The processes tab doesn't show anything using that amount of cpu and all vms showed the same thing.

I am assuming we did something wrong or didn't install a driver or some tools or something.

Has anyone here seen something like that?

[Perryg]

Most of the time when I see this it is due to the Windows indexing service. This service kicks in when Windows detects that the machine is idle and indexes all of the drive. You can test this by doing something trivial and see if the usage drops a little or by suspending the service in the service manager and see if the usage drops. Some virus software also creates a long term toll on the cpu just after startup.

[casolorz]

Most of the time when I see this it is due to the Windows indexing service. This service kicks in when Windows detects that the machine is idle and indexes all of the drive. You can test this by doing something trivial and see if the usage drops a little or by suspending the service in the service manager and see if the usage drops. Some virus software also creates a long term toll on the cpu just after startup.

The indexing service is already disabled. The other strange thing is that the Linux host shows almost no resources in use, specially cpu.

[Perryg]

Watch task manager in the Windows guest or better yet install sysinternals process explorer and see what is using the ticks.

[casolorz]

Thats the odd thing. In task manager there is nothing using cpu other than maybe 1 or 2% every few seconds. But nothing is using enough to make it to 30%. I'll give sysinternals a try.

[Virtual69]

I'm having a similar problem. My host is showing that VirtualBox is always consuming 100% of a CPU, yet Windows show's no CPU load whatsoever.

I also had this problem with XP.

[casolorz]

Here is a pic of what is happening to us. Look at the 33% cpu load, yet no processes to account for it.

[Perryg]

You need sysinternals process explorer to see what is using the processor.
The task manager just does not tell anyone enough to know what it is or what needs to be done.
Once you have isolated it then maybe we can help.
As a side note I don't have this issue most of the time. When I do see it I have tracked it down to the index service or superfetch on my systems. Things that Windows uses when the system is detected as idle.

[Virtual69]

You need sysinternals process explorer to see what is using the processor.

Here is a snapshot from Process Explorer. As you can see, process explorer is consuming the most CPU, at 6%.

Process PID CPU Private Bytes Working Set Description Company Name
System Idle Process 0 100.00 0 K 24 K
procexp64.exe 3560 6.26 19,640 K 37,304 K Sysinternals Process Explorer Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
Interrupts n/a 2.68 0 K 0 K Hardware Interrupts
System 4 1.79 124 K 5,500 K
BESClient.exe 1772 1.79 11,160 K 10,288 K
svchost.exe 800 0.89 5,684 K 10,124 K Host Process for Windows Services Microsoft Corporation
SmcGui.exe 3180 0.89 6,768 K 5,748 K Symantec CMC SmcGui Symantec Corporation
Rtvscan.exe 1844 0.89 19,048 K 4,328 K Symantec AntiVirus Symantec Corporation
lsm.exe 576 0.89 2,596 K 4,312 K
explorer.exe 3172 0.89 39,440 K 51,692 K Windows Explorer Microsoft Corporation

[Perryg]

@Virtual69,
Please update your profile so I know what we are actually talking about. VBox version, host, guest, Also 32 - 64 but.
Then post the guests log file (as an attachment)

[casolorz]

You need sysinternals process explorer to see what is using the processor.

Here is a snapshot from Process Explorer. As you can see, process explorer is consuming the most CPU, at 6%.

I think this is different than my problem. I see the cpu load on the guest, about 30% when no process on the guest is using any processor time.

[Virtual69]

@Virtual69,
Please update your profile so I know what we are actually talking about. VBox version, host, guest, Also 32 - 64 but.
Then post the guests log file (as an attachment)

I don't have a profile because I use VBox on several different hosts (Windows, Solaris 11Express, Ubuntu 10.10, etc) so anything I put there could be wrong depending upon what I'm talking about.

In this case, I am seeing this on Solaris 11 and Ubuntu 10.10 with a Windows 7 guest on VBOX 4.0 I have also experienced with XP guests before I switched to Win 7 (did a fresh install). Vbox 3.x also gave me the same issue with XP and Windows 7.

Log file attached.

[Perryg]

I really don't see anything in the log that jumps out and says fix me.
I have checked all of my Windows guests and none of them show this anomaly. When idle they run around 0% to as much as 6% when Windows polls.

The CPU used to jump hard when the RACAgent kicked in (which it does every hour) and when Indexing runs. I have stopped both so I don't have this issue. I also don't use superfetch on anything desktop related as I have enough drive speed and Processor to offset this. I also do not have 3D/2D enabled in any of them except one XPpro 32-bit guest, and I run them with minimal RAM (none are over 2048MB).

As you can see above all of the things that I have done were on the guest, so the readings you are seeing more than likely reside there as well. IMHO

[ttoombs]

I have a similar problem with Vista-32 Ultimate (I know....). ProcessExplorer shows 30-50% (dual processor installation) allocated to DPCs. My research says in a standard installation, this would usually be some kind of driver call-back, probably indicating a faulty or mismatched hardware driver, but I'm certainly no expert. As others have mentioned, I also have indexing is off, video effects are off, sound is off. There is a USB device attached that is fairly new. This device works, but is very slow.

I have a similar issue when running a WinXP guest.

This _could_ be an issue with a recent upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 -> 10.04, or recent updates to VBox. I don't run this VM often enough to remember if there was a particular trigger or not. It could also be a Windows problem, I'm not sophisticated enough to be able to tell.

Host: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
VBox version: 3.2.12.r68302
Hardware: AMD Phenom II X4 - 8GB RAM
Guest: Vista-32 Ultimate (2x CPU, 2GB RAM, 128MB Video
WinXP-Pro (1x CPU, 2GB RAM, 128MB Video)

[casolorz]

I have all those things off too, and I think most scheduled tasks are off now too.