Windows server 2012 - can't assign more then 2G RAM

[Hish0t]

Hallo,

I've a problem i'm trying to give my VM of Windows server 2012 more RAM (now has 2G) but everytime i try to add just a bit more and try to starting my VM it goes on pause and i'm not able to resume it again. The host has 32G RAM. Anyone knows a solution?

Cheers,
Hish0t

[mpack]

Please post a VM log file. With the VM fully shut down, right click and "Show Log" in the GUI, save "VBox.log" (ONLY) to a zip, and attach the zip here.

[Hish0t]

Sure thing here you go!

Cheers,
Hish0t

[mpack]

You have a quad core host, and I see you have assigned all four cores to the guest, leaving the host with 0 cores to itself. This can harm performance and system stability. I would reduce the VM to 2 cores. Threads are not cores.

VHD is not the native format in VirtualBox, and in fact it is the worst (most fragile) of the well known formats. Any reason why you aren't using VDI?

Also, given that you're using VHD, the question arises in my mind as to where this VM came from. Was it always (or ever) a working VirtualBox VM, installed from scratch in VirtualBox?

You seem to have plenty memory free on the host. That would mean that it's a special kind of RAM that it's short of, specifically host RAM below 2G, which is needed to run kernel level code in the guest. I would look for something you are installing on the host which is allocating and locking a large chunk of host kernel memory.

[Hish0t]

Hallo,

I've had this issue even when i used 1 core. I was testing myself what could of been the issue that's why i had 4 cores. But i've moved it back to 2 cores.

I used VDI before my teacher told me i should use VHD for our machines at college. I had more machines just like this one who run perfect but never added more RAM. This machine was create from scratch on this host. The Host i actually not ussing a lot off memory if not nothing atm or do you meen something els?

EDIT: I just made a new machine running a VDI with 1 processor and 8G of RAM and still get the same issue. The VM just goes on pause on startup meaby runs 5-10 secconds.

Cheers,
Hish0t

[mpack]

My previous post was updated while you were replying.

[Hish0t]

I apologize i've seen your comment and edited my last post.

EDIT: Meaby some extra information that could be usefull. I also have a Debian (64bit) VM running on that host with 8G RAM and a VHD with no problems.

[mpack]

The gross amount of RAM used is not your problem. The problem is almost certainly the guest's use of host kernel RAM (RAM from below the 2GB address range, desired by kernel mode drivers etc). You have something else on your host which is eating host kernel RAM. It would be something not native to Windows, which loads on startup and locks a large chunk of kernel RAM. AV might be a prime suspect.

Your Debian VM has an entirely different memory map, so isn't a good comparison. Another Win-64 VM with similar installed apps and drivers would be more telling. Also, the memory-hogging troublemaker is likely to be on your host, not any guest.

To be clear: the use of VHD is not causing your problem, it's just something I noted when looking at your log. VHD is inefficient and error prone, and not the preferred format when using VirtualBox. If anything goes wrong then we don't have much VHD expertise around here, so you'll be on your own. Still, you are no doubt making regular backups anyway so that shouldn't be a problem.

[Hish0t]

Hallo,

I found this really weird because i don't have a lot running on this machine. It starts up with XAMPP and a Teamspeak server. Also i'm running 3 steam gameservers. and AVG and not a lot more installed on the host.

I'll be installing the machine with a VDI to prevent future failer, thanks for the heads up!

I'll also try to install a other Windows machine and get back to you with the results.

Cheers,
Hish0t

[Hish0t]

I did some testing with a Windows 7 VM and i have the same issue.

[Hish0t]

Just another update:

I've stopt all programs that are not windows related (on the host) and my anti virus program (AVG). Also tryed to run the VM on a other host and 4G RAM works fine on that host. But on the normal afther closing and ending all tasks still get the pause en popup with: HostMemoryLow. Also check Google chrome settings and that was fine to.

Cheers,
Hish0t

[socratis]

Also check Google chrome settings and that was fine to.

There have been known problems with Google processes: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=48038

Also, a more recent blog post has a lot more details: https://raywoodcockslatest.wordpress.co ... shhandler/

Final thought; as mpack has said again and again, there is something in your host that's causing this. I don't have your Add/Remove programs panel in front of me.