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Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 14. Apr 2014, 22:04
by Honki
I use a HP-DL140G3 - 8 Core´s (2 physical) and 16 Gbyte Ram - with Debian Wheezy 32Bit and Virtualbox Version 4.3.10.

My Probelm is, that all Guests (Win7, Debian Jessie) have a very poor performance when I use more than 1 CPU Core on guest, IO-APIC, PAE/NX, VT-x/AMD-V and Nested Paging are active in BIOS and the VM´s. There is no better perfomance when i change or deactivate this paramater.

On Host with "top" i can see 400% - 600% CPU workload on vboxheadless for the VM with 6 CPU Cores for example, but the VM is in idle mode...

Anybody have some idea?

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 14. Apr 2014, 23:09
by Perryg
Not much can be determined without the guests log file ( as an attachment )

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 06:19
by Honki
ok, here is it...

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 14:47
by Perryg
With an X5355 having 4 logical processors and you have 8, I assume that you have a dual quad system.

I also see that you are running a 32-bit host

Code: Select all

00:00:00.066414 OS Product: Linux
00:00:00.066415 OS Release: 3.2.0-4-686-pae
00:00:00.066416 OS Version: #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2
This means that you are running a 32-bit guest

Code: Select all

00:00:00.301983 Guest OS type: 'Windows7'
00:00:00.492282 HM: Guest support: 32-bit only.
Now to the amount of cores. here seems to be a loss of improvement with adding more cores than a single socket has so 4 would be the most you could use without a loss.
But now you have the overhead of trying to run SMP on the guest and that is where, IMHO you are loosing it.

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 15:08
by Honki
Thanks for replay!

But for understanding, the Guest have veeeery poor performance with MORE than 1 Core (with 2 Core it is too!), the Guest need with 2 Core´s more than 5 minutes to boot, with 1 Core Boottime is under 60 Sec.

How can i fix it? - possible 64bit Linux on Host?

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 15:23
by Perryg
I would think that a 64-bit Linux host would work better. I have not had a 32-bit host in 4 or 5 years. I do have a Windows 7 pro 32-bit Laptop, but do not run Virtualizers in it. I use it for a specific purpose and nothing else.

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 16:03
by Honki
Is your answer definitely the technical Solution or should there be a test due to ignorance?

Sorry for my question but I can not see some concrete contents...

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 16:37
by Perryg
I am saying that it will work better to run 64-bit or SMP guests in a 64-bit host.

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 15. Apr 2014, 16:48
by Honki
I ask, is it defently the Solution for the Problem?

sorry, but some newinstall with 64Bit Wheezy on this host maschine is very costly! - please understand that I need some concrete answer for this problem!

"better" but not fixed is not enough for me, I also think that this is a general problem and and the effect is reproducible. Can you confirm that?

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 16. Apr 2014, 11:11
by socratis
Honki wrote:I ask, is it defently the Solution for the Problem?
Honki wrote:I need some concrete answer
I suggest that if you want a concrete, definite answer, you should not rely on volunteers and users like Perryg and myself, but you should definitely and concretely purchase some support from Oracle. Or, you can always try it for yourself, like we are doing, and post the answer here for the rest of the community to benefit.

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 16. Apr 2014, 19:05
by Honki
Sorry, I wanted to offend anyone, but is now the official support forum of Oracle VirtualBox with official support or try here some volunteers try and error?

My claim here is only to make specific answers to specific questions to get the whole "I mean ...", "could ...", for me, makes no proffessional impression and "have a laptop with Win7 64bit and have never used anything else " also has nothing to do with my question... sorry for my cleary words!

No offense! - but a professional and official support to specific error patterns seems to me different! - or is that a business model of the Oracle to lure customers and then to take money (purchase competent support) for bugfix for defective software? - if that is so, the forum is here meaningless, and the software against the release information beta and can not be used! - whether for business or pleasure!

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 16. Apr 2014, 19:19
by Perryg
Tell you what Honki,

You keep saying no offense but than turn right around and dish more out. I gave you my professional opinion which comes from 6 years experience with VirtualBox. It make no difference to me if you use my advise or not, but I will not respond to insults.

You have before you two options as I see it. You can continue with what you have now or you can select to improve your performance. As for the forum, if you look it says end users forum sponsored by Oracle. The only way to get official support is to buy the product instead of using the free one. Then and only then will you have "official" support.

Now you said "or is that a business model of the Oracle to lure customers and then to take money (purchase competent support) for bugfix for defective software?" which is either a lie or you are talking to the wrong people. If in fact you have paid for the product you would have official support and would use Oracle support.

As for specific answers to specific questions, that would be all but impossible as no one will know your competence level, nor whether your host has what is required or is contaminated in some way.

Oh and no offense meant.

Re: Guests performance very poor with more than one CPU Core

Posted: 16. Apr 2014, 19:49
by Honki
Virtualbox deinstalled! - produkt with MANY Bugs, not available! - KVM is working like a charm with same 32 Bit OS on host :mrgreen:

always sought support... sorry for you Time!