virtualbox.org

Why is my VirtualBox process taking up 10-20% of CPU almost constantly when "nothing" is happening inside the VM (99% idle in task manager).

Or is it that just running the Windows OS takes 10%... probably... hm

Minimum information needed for assistance.

VB 4.3.8 (latest)
1500 MB of Ram on Guest, 32bit
8GB on Host, 64bit

Ok, so it's an XP guest - useful to know.

Your VRAM setting is way too low. Presumably the VM settings dialog gives you warnings about this?

I hope you realize that you haven't installed the extension pack. You won't have USB2 or VRDP support.

You still have the GA's CD mounted. It's good practice to unmount that before it gets overwritten on your next VBox update.

None of the above is serious, except perhaps the semi-serious shortage of VRAM.

There's nothing unusual about an XP guest taking large chunks of CPU soon after boot, or when looking for updates, or when AV has been installed. You can look at the task list in the guest and see when where the CPU time is going. Some of it can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary backround processes, e.g. disk indexing. However that's a subject for a Windows support website.

mpack wrote:Ok, so it's an XP guest - useful to know.

mpack wrote:Your VRAM setting is way too low. Presumably the VM settings dialog gives you warnings about this?

Didn't get any warnings plus why is it so low by default? I have set it to 100MB now.

mpack wrote:I hope you realize that you haven't installed the extension pack. You won't have USB2 or VRDP support.

Probably don't need that, but I didn't know about it. I installed Guest Additions though... thought that this is all there is to install additionally.

mpack wrote:You still have the GA's CD mounted. It's good practice to unmount that before it gets overwritten on your next VBox update.

GA's CD ? Where can I see that, can't find it.

mpack wrote:None of the above is serious, except perhaps the semi-serious shortage of VRAM.

There's nothing unusual about an XP guest taking large chunks of CPU soon after boot, or when looking for updates, or when AV has been installed. You can look at the task list in the guest and see when where the CPU time is going. Some of it can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary backround processes, e.g. disk indexing. However that's a subject for a Windows support website.

When there is absolutelly nothing running in the VM and it says 0% CPU in task manager, I got 5% CPU usage in host... So this is also abnormal? When there is some simple thing running in VM, the usage jumps to 10-20%.

If there was really nothing running then it would use 0% CPU. Clearly that isn't the case. Like I said, pop up the guests task manager and see for yourself where the CPU is going.

mpack wrote:If there was really nothing running then it would use 0% CPU. Clearly that isn't the case. Like I said, pop up the guests task manager and see for yourself where the CPU is going.

"it says 0% CPU in task manager"

I was wondering if maybe the guest OS stuff takes 5% in the host at minimum. That wouldn't show in task manager in guest.

But if you say it should be 0 CPU, then something is strange...

It's possible that there's some overhead required on a Mac host, I wouldn't know.

mpack wrote:It's possible that there's some overhead required on a Mac host, I wouldn't know.

It's probably the same everywhere... On which platform do you have experience?

Windows. With VMs using VT-x the overhead is minimal. But, obviously there's the VBoxSVC task running, virtual networks being simulated etc, so every now and then it'll spike to 5% or so.

mpack wrote:Windows. With VMs using VT-x the overhead is minimal. But, obviously there's the VBoxSVC task running, virtual networks being simulated etc, so every now and then it'll spike to 5% or so.

ok, with me it's constantly at 5%

maybe someone on Mac can also comment... would be great to know...

davidhq wrote: maybe someone on Mac can also comment... would be great to know...

okay. with Windows 7 as a guest I get 4.3% to 5.5% while W7 is not doing anything. I hope that helps.

When not doing anything in the guests my Windows XP and Windows 7 guests use about 2.5 to 5 % of the CPU each (it bounces around between those). This in on a Mac Pro (Early 2008).

mine might be higher on the bottom end because I run widgets on the desktop. weather, clock etc.

Thank you for the info...

Then it's something strange with my installation... possibly bugs. I still get 10-20% when idle :/


Can someone from dev time mahybe help / comment - how could I reach them?