Virtual machine slowness


  1. Posts : 73
    Windows 7 Pro x64
       #1

    Virtual machine slowness


    I was fortunate to get a few license keys for 2016 server and I set up a virtual machine for testing purposes. The last 2 times I ran it I ran into major slowness issues. The mouse was lagging and jerking around to different parts of the window, the right click menus where loading on the opposite side of the window from which I opened them, and the start menu would only open if I hit the Windows key. The first time this happened I attributed this to installing updates but that wasn't the case the last time. Now I have given all of my virtual machines from Vista and 2008 on up the same specs. They get 2 cores of my 3.2 ghz quad core i3 and 2 gb of ram out of my system's 8. I can run any of the rest of the VMs without any performance issues. I can even run 2 of them at a time just fine with no slowness on the virtual machines or on my host OS but lately I am having problems even running the 2016 VM by itself. CPU and memory usage seemed a little high running anywhere from 10-30% with defender and .net optimization taking up the bulk of the CPU cycles. This has me flabbergasted considering that I really don't do anything with this VM other than look around and keep it updated. I don't have any server related software running on it at all. I don't run browsers or office software on it. Any advise? I'm not as familiar with 10 as I am 7 so I'm not sure what to look for. I didn't find any way to turn off .net optimization. Is there a way to turn that off? It isn't showing up under services. At the time of the slowness I wasn't experiencing any issues on my host. If it helps I am using Vmware workstation 12.5.9 on Windows 7.
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  2. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #2

    Hi there
    Have you updated VMWARE TOOLS (or installed it yet) on the VM -- this should fix mouse and screen problems

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 73
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #3

    I have VMware tools installed but I didn't try an update. I try that and let you know. Is there anything I can do within the VM? Can I disable .net optimization?
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #4

    Hi there

    VM's need a decent amount of RAM to run -- you might need to allocate more for the server. I'd up the RAM to 4GB if you can. For a server you don't need a huge amount of CPU horsepower so just give it 1 core. The other thing is you need to have the VM itself located on the fastest disks possible -- and SSD would be best. Slow Disks will kill any system real or virtual even if it has the fastest CPU in the galaxy.

    Most people don't realize how the Disk I/O subsystem influences performance. Over the years apart from obvious cases of lack of RAM 90% of performance problems I've seen have been due to slow or poorly configured Disks.

    A VISTA VM will run quite happily with even 1GB RAM - but servers are something else.

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 73
    Windows 7 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    I can allot more ram but I have the same set up on 2008, 2008 r2, and 2012 r2 - all with no issues and again I really don't have anything running on it. I agree with your assessment if I was doing server work but I'm not. Are you saying that 2016 requires more substantial resources than 2008 and 2012? I checked the ram and only 60% was consistently in use so I shouldn't have been using much virtual memory if any. Thank you for the suggestion on an SSD but I have an all in one system with no room for an additional drive and I really don't have an easy way to replace the one that's in here. I would have to take the monitor apart to get to the drive. The best I could do would be to slave one through usb and it's only 2.0 so there wouldn't be an advantage in doing that. I only had this issue the last 2 times I ran the VM and not prior that I remember so I wonder if one of the updates caused slowness. That has happened with 7 for many users.
      My Computer


  6. jrm
    Posts : 6
    Windows 10
       #6

    I would agree with @jimbo45. The disk subsystem can have a big influence on the performance of your VMs. Since you can't add SSD. If you have enough RAM, you can create a RAM disk to the performance of the VM on top of RAM (should be much much better)
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 86
    Windows 7 Professional x64
       #7
      My Computer


 

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