Only Half Cores used; over half cores> Guru Mediation error

[mikeinnyc]

Hello,

I have been getting this Error Guru Meditation constantly now when I rush the VM to start. Only a complete Server reboot of r2 fixes this.

I have 80 Cores 4 E7-8860, 64 Gigs dd3 1066 ECC. When using Win7x64 Guests of 2 gigs ram/ 5 cpus each/ she will work ONLY if I load each VM one completely at a time. After around 10 VM have completely loaded the rest of VMs fail with Guru error. Thinking out of resources since I was able to load with no problems.

When I try to load 15Vms all fast and at once, I don't get past the 3rd VM. All crash at the same time with Guru Error. Can't retry it either unless a full reboot.

I looked in the logs and found that only half of my CPU cores are registered which would explain the 50% cpu load max then crash. I was not able to get above 50% Cpu load however my ram was a stable slow 45 degree climb (Task Mgr) with half left over.

In the Log files of the Guests Win 7x64: Logical Host Processors: 40 Present, 40 Max, 40 Online, mask 000000fffffffffffff

I know win 7 has a limitation of 2 CPU which would make total sense since its only seeing 2 cpus. My question is does VB allocated CPUS based upon the host or guest or both?

I'm just trying to figure out the crashes. It appears if set the CPU and Ram parameters Vs the number of VM max per system using only half the CPUS .........she works.
Also Numas 1,3 active, Numa Mode 2,4 not even used. Even if i set tasks to high priority and set affinity to all cores same result.

System is running very fast and stable when the number of CPU was lower but this crash is a concern. last line (VT-x is not available) I'm think because I have no CPU cores left.... which again runs out of CPU cores causing error.


Thanks,

Mike

[Martin]

Do you have four or eight of the 10-core E7-8860?
Each CPU only has 10 cores, you cannot really count/use the hyperthreaded "virtual cores" for virtualisation.

[mikeinnyc]

I have 4 CPUs It shows in windows as 80 threads but yes 10 cores each but 20 threads.

maybe its cores that are showing and not threads.

Thus, when I configure VirtualBox I now must assign "cores based upon Physically available" in the CPU and not based upon Windows Threads like Hyper v.
It's easy to get confused in windows task manager which shows 80 CPUS available. Logical and Physical and who's on first? Third base.

In short, I only have 40 Logical Cores available for the total # of VMs - OS requirement.
That would make total sense then because I am assigning more CPU cores than I really have. So I must either reduce the number of VMs or Reduce the Cores per VM.

Hopefully, I never see that Guru again.

Thanks.

[mikeinnyc]

Ok, well I did lower the CPU down to 2 and the ram down to 2gigs. I was able to open up till 7 before crashing out. I did load VMs one at time to be safe.

On the next VM I got this error.

"VT-x/AMD-v is either not available on your host or disabled."
VERR_RAW_MODE_INVALID_SMP guru meditation for SMP . I double checked my setting and its enabled for each VM.
Bios is enabled.

What I did: Disabled Sound. Download Nivida GTX 550ti new drivers minus 3d just basic. (weird windows sound when VM starts sound seriously Demonic... great for a movie)
Reinstalled Fresh Windows 7 64bit no updates but this time as .vhd instead of .vdi.
Uninstaller Microsoft Essentials antivirus program
rebooted

Same problem occurs. E_FAIL (0x80004005) Console I console Installed extension packs: "None Installed!"

I will install extension packs to see if this helps

[mikeinnyc]

Solved!

Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious. After reinstalling and rebooting I got the same Guru Crash WTF?
Then I went to look at my D: drive (All VMs reside here) which was Neon RED and almost out of space. I still had like 20 gigs left but paging files are using 65 gigs of D drive also. Got to remember paging files eat HD space and write and read at the same time. Hence the sounds of Lucifer with MS startup theme because there was no space left...herky jerky sounds. I will have to dedicate my SSD for paging space now.

Once I deleted some Old VMs to free up space. (60 Gigs left) she flys fast. 20 seconds per VM using JBOD Raid 6 disks. I could only imagine what SSD could do with VMs.

I was able to open up 15 VM in a row all using 2 gigs and only 2 cpus. Yes I did it twice so I can rest and put this behind me. Nows its time to enjoy VB.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Mike