virtualbox.org

Many of the settings I try to apply to VirtualBox either won't change, appear to change but don't stick, or shouldn't be offered by VirtualBox because my mainboard doesn't support them or they're over-ridden by BIOS settings. For example, Enable IO APIC is ticked and I can untick it and click OK to register the change. But if I then go back to the System | Motherboard tab it will have forgotten what I did - it'll be ticked again. The same happens on the Acceleration tab: I can untick Enable VT-x/AMD-V but, after clicking OK, if I revisit the tab the virtualization will be enabled as it was before. I can't even fix that by disabling virtualisation support in my BIOS (latest i.e. 0572 on Intel DP35DP m/b with Q9450 CPU): VirtualBox still insists that VT-x/AMD-V is enabled (but of course it won't allow a VM to start, because virtualisation's disabled in the BIOS). Another problem on that tab with Enable Nested Paging: the tick-box is there but it shouldn't be; nested paging was never supported on the DP35DP m/b family. (In any case, I can tick to enable it but, like the other settings, VirtualBox ignores the tick - on revisiting the tab, the box is always unticked.) 2D and 3D acceleration behave the same: I can tick either one, but on revisiting them they're always unticked again. I'm running VirtualBox 4.1.22r80657 with the Oracle Extension Pack 4.1.20-80170. The host OS is Windows 7 Pro SP1 32-bit. The problems occur with no VMs running of course, but for what it's worth the guest OS is Ubuntu Precise with Guest Additions installed. Any help greatly appreciated.


Lloyd

Lloyd
I don't know if that is causing your issues, but you should always use the version of the extension pack that corresponds to the version of VBox, which you have installed. As far as displaying settings, which are not available on your system, VBox doesn't scan your system for the various functionalites. It's up to you to know your machine and its setup and to select the settings accordingly. For the VBox team to write code to scan your system would be an enormous task considering all the hardware configurations possible and the fact that hardware is continuously advancing. Another thing to consider is the user: The user may have a certain motherboard, but does the user also have the most up-to-date bios installed? The bios is a very important factor here.
Install the correct extension pack and see if that helps.

EDIT: Check the access rights to your VMs' folders and files.

Hi Etepetete

Really appreciate your reply - thanks. I've checked that the versions match and am slowly getting on top of the problem. Much of it was my own limited understanding - I'm pretty much a VB newbie. One thing that helped a lot was updating my video card's drivers: with the previous ones, 3D acceleration was reported as working but wouldn't start; now it's working - yay! I may yet disable hardware virtualisation in the BIOS and create a new VM that doesn't use it, as I'm suspicious that performance has actually dropped since I enabled it with the new mainboard BIOS. Getting there...


Cheers, and thanks again,

Lloyd