XP - used HALu for 2 CPUs - now running slow

[sternfan]

Hi all,

I have a XP guest that I moved from an old 32-bit server to a new 64-bit v-t capable server (on ubuntu 11.04 64-bit). I exported the guest as an appliance and imported it into the new server. Once moved the VM worked OK, so I decided to upgrade it to take advantage of the new server. I wanted to upgrade to two CPUs, so I did a search on it and found HALu. I ran it and it successfully changed the HAL to "ACPI multiprocessor PC." The problem is, the guest is now running slow (slower than before), and when I go into the guest task manager, both of the CPUs are very high - close to 100% almost all the time and never under 65%

These are enabled in vbox:
- IO APIC
- PAE/NX
- VT-x/AMD-v
- nested paging (however, when the guest is running I notice that this is disabled)

Any solution to this? Or should I just go back to the old single CPU HAL?

Any help greatly appreciated,
Rob

[sternfan]

Ok - I jumped the gun and set it back to ACPI PC. It is now performing as normal.

So - if I had to do this again, what do I do to take advantage of multiple CPUs in this case?

Thanks,
Rob

[vbox4me2]

Play with IO APIC and PAE/NX settings.

[sternfan]

Thanks for the reply.

Play with the IO APIC & PAE\NX settings? I was under the impression that if you disable IO APIC that you needed to do a re-install? Or am I wrong? And after disabling IO APIC, what do I do then? Re-run HALu and try to get two CPUs again?

Any help greatly appreciated,
Rob

[vbox4me2]

All of the above, its always a mix of settings and type of hal, which combo works best is unfortunately a trail game. Personally I've haven't seen a VM really benefiting from more then 1 core, maybe 4 cores on at least a 8 core host with an OS/app that really uses the cores individually.