Win7 x64 guest stalls, pauses under Vbox 4.04

[poulbak]

Possible workaround:
I installed a fresh Windows 7 x64 yesterday and immidiately saw this issue (it's very easy to see if you start task manager, performance tab, it simply stops updating and later continues as if everything was fine).

I simply installed Intel Rapid Storage (latest version) in the guest. After reboots, I have not seen the problem!
Try it http://downloadcenter.intel.com/

Hope this helps someone. If it does, I think it would be a good idea to update the help file regarding PIIX3/ICH9. All it says is: You can choose this or that, as if we're all experts.

[SMStallings48]

Updating the Intel Rapid Storage did not resolve the problem on my computer. As I started to follow poulbak's procedure, I discovered and ran Intel's very useful Driver Update Utility on the host (http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect/). It reported that new versions of the "Intel Chipset Software" and the "Rapid Storage Technology" (RAID software) were available. Following are the steps taken:

1. Updated the chipset software on the host, rebooted the host, guest problem was not resolved.
2. Updated the RAID software on the host, rebooted the host, guest problem was not resolved.
3. Changed the guest chipset to PIIX3.
4. Updated the chipset software on the guest, rebooted the guest and host, guest problem was not resolved.
5. Ran the Intel Driver Update Utility on the guest which reported new versions of the Rapid Storage Technology and the "wired network driver".
6. Updated the RAID software on the guest, rebooted the guest and host, guest problem was not resolved.
7. Downloaded the "wired network driver" and got a file with a seemingly inappropriate name of Pro2K.exe. Tried to install it and got a message that it was not the right version for the OS. It is the file that the Intel utility provided, though the guest OS is Win7. So, I abandoned that task.
8. Changed the guest chipset back to ICH9, rebooted the guest, guest problem was again resolved.

So, I feel as though I've spent the night dancing with the devil and have not resolved the problem. I do like the Intel utility and recommend it's use at least on hosts.

[wacher]

My experience: I tried poulbak's hint, unfortunately it cause BSOD. (version 10.x) I tried the 9.6 too, it works well but not solve the problem.

[hilltop]

Has anyone tested the "Stalling/Pausing of Win7 Guests" with Vbox version 4.0.6 released today, 2011-04-21? From the release notes, this potential root cause bug is resolved:

HPET: fixed time jumps when reading the counter (bug #8707)

I have not seen a confirmation that the HPET on/off setting resolved the problem except from wacher who verified this in 4.0.5 by toggling HPET while using the older PIIX3 chipset. What is the default HPET setting in 4.0.6?

I will upgrade my Vbox and test this by 2011-04-25.

[wacher]

I tested, not good. The problem still exists.

[hilltop]

Confirming that. Just upgraded to 4.0.6 r71344 and upgraded Guest Additions in the Win7 x64 guest as well -- still observing the stalling.

[wacher]

I tested 4.0.8 release, and the problem still exists.

[sandroid]

I have had this problem pretty much since vbox 4. I'm now on 4.1.0 and still having this problem. Changing the disk from SATA to PIIX has not helped. In fact, it feels like going to 4.1.0 made it worse!

My host is a Dell Precision workstation with a core i7 with HT and 8 gigs of ram running ubuntu 11.10 (maverick) fully updated with the standard release kernel. Vbox runs everything else fine, the problem is only with win7. It is an image provided by work, running win7 pro and office 2007. The VM itself is deployed as follows:

2CPU's
3.2 gigs of ram
30 gig disk for OS
6 gig disk (on a separate disk from the one running the host OS) for win7's swap
50MB display ram, 2 displays - no 3d accel.

This problem manifests itself while running outlook 2007. Every so often, when exchange is updating, and an email comes in, the app seems to hang, and while everything else seems responsive, if I try to do anything else, it freezes too. Since moving to 4.1.0, I've reduced CPU's from 4, to 2. The net result though is that this hanging now lasts in the neighborhood of 30-45 seconds, from 10-20 seconds.

I have a win7 VM running at home on virtualbox, but with office 2010. These are standard versions of the software, as far as I can tell, from the MS action pack subscription. It's running on an older system, a core2quad 6xxx (can't remember) with 8 gigs of ram, and it has to share resources with a busier host, and 3 additional guests. Oddly enough, it works just fine there. I can't figure out what the problem may be.

Any help would be appreciated, any additional details I can give about the VM environments of both can be provided if necessary.

[steveriley]

Similar behavior was reported on another thread. Try changing your system chipset from ICH9 to PIIX3. This solved my problem with a stalling Windows 7 x64 guest on VirtualBox 4.0.12.

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=42843

[wacher]

Changing the disk from SATA to PIIX has not helped.

Storage is irrelevant, but see System->system Chipset

[Chadarius]

I have seen this behavior with every version of 4.x I have installed. I am currently running 4.1.2 on Ubuntu 11.04. Windows 7 Enterprise x64 as my guest OS. Everytime a launch Firefox it locks one CPU on the host and the guest looses time just as everyone else.

I did notice that after a long period of letting Firefox just sit, it seems to stop locking the CPU when I use it. However, if I reboot I would have to let it sit for quite a long while again before it would stop making the CPU lock everytime I started using it.

I switched to the PIIX3 chipset and Firefox can launch and be useable at anytime without locking the CPU. I'm going to try messing with Intel drivers to see if I can get things working again with ICH9 because ICH9 aside from this bug seems much faster to me.

[mfrobben]

I've been frustrated by this too. I broke into the VM via kernel debugger during one of these hangs. The executing thread (running for almost 2 minutes when I broke in!) was in some code intiated by the HPET clock interrupt handler that no public symbols are available for or has been performance optimized. So, I'm guessing there's some kind of bug or lock contention or race condition in that code, or perhaps in the Vbox implementation of HPET and how the system is handling HPET clock interrupts.

Side note: Oddly enough, I see these hangs occuring often after user-initiated disk I/O. There's always tons of disk I/O going on in a windows box, but the hangs seem to be occurring most often whenever I manually create / delete / move / execute files.

kd> !thread
THREAD fffff80002a0fc40 Cid 0000.0000 Teb: 0000000000000000 Win32Thread: 0000000000000000 RUNNING on processor 0
Not impersonating
DeviceMap fffff8a0000060c0
Owning Process fffff80002a10140 Image: Idle
Attached Process fffffa8000cb8040 Image: System
Wait Start TickCount 0 Ticks: 8536 (0:00:02:13.162)
Context Switch Count 8305 IdealProcessor: 0
UserTime 00:00:00.000
KernelTime 00:01:51.649
Win32 Start Address nt!KiIdleLoop (0xfffff800028916a0)
Stack Init fffff80003c2bdb0 Current fffff80003c2bd40
Base fffff80003c2c000 Limit fffff80003c26000 Call 0
Priority 16 BasePriority 0 UnusualBoost 0 ForegroundBoost 0 IoPriority 0 PagePriority 0
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for intelppm.sys
Child-SP RetAddr : Args to Child : Call Site
fffff800`03c2b9c8 fffff800`02850b93 : fffffa80`0281fb28 00000000`00002158 fffff780`00000320 00000000`00026160 : nt!RtlpBreakWithStatusInstruction
fffff800`03c2b9d0 fffff800`02dfe895 : fffff800`02e233c0 fffff800`03c2bb80 fffff800`02e233c0 fffffa80`00000000 : nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+0x6cb0
fffff800`03c2bad0 fffff800`028853f3 : 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`02825e01 00000001`00000298 00000000`00000000 : hal!HalpHpetClockInterrupt+0x8d
fffff800`03c2bb00 fffff880`041bf9c2 : fffff800`02896a3a 00000000`002f1850 fffffa80`01f450a8 fffffa80`0257f400 : nt!KiInterruptDispatchNoLock+0x163 (TrapFrame @ fffff800`03c2bb00)
fffff800`03c2bc98 fffff800`02896a3a : 00000000`002f1850 fffffa80`01f450a8 fffffa80`0257f400 00000000`00000000 : intelppm+0x39c2
fffff800`03c2bca0 fffff800`028916cc : fffff800`02a01e80 fffff800`00000000 00000000`00000000 fffff880`0148fc50 : nt!PoIdle+0x53a
fffff800`03c2bd80 00000000`00000000 : fffff800`03c2c000 fffff800`03c26000 fffff800`03c2bd40 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiIdleLoop+0x2c