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Answerwindows virtual pc issue, slow performance.

  • Friday, October 30, 2009 12:54 PMPRoland Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
     
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    Hey, I am running windows 7 professional 64bit, I installed windows virtual pc. I have hardware virtualization enabled, install was succesful.
    The main problem is I get very slow performance on an vm, even the mouse moves very slow inside the vm it takes me minutes to even click a thing...
    I tried all things, dynamic expanding hard drive, fixed size, etc, tried everything is the same issue, even reinstalled win7 to 32bit os and the issue is the same.
    The machine has 1 gb of ram and I am trying to install win xp, tried also to install w7 and vista but the same issue accours.
    no errors in event log, I have 2 vieo cards, switched them, same issue.
    The specs are:

    sony vaio vgn-z31xn/b
    4gb ddr3
    128gb solid state drive
    windows 7 professional 64bit edition
    intel core 2 P9600 processor

    is there anything else to look into ?
     

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  • Friday, October 30, 2009 2:21 PMBob ComerMVPUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
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    Have you installed the integration components in the virtual machines, that should help?

    If you have, most likely you're running into a power management problem.  You can try setting your power management settings to maximum performance and see if that helps. 

    If it doesn't, you've probably got a laptop like mine where the power management isn't controlled well by the OS, so you have to trick it basically to get good performance.  I use Seti@Home's BOINC client to run a low priority processin the background to foce the PC to not throttle down the speed of the CPU. BOINC defaults to having processes for both cores, but you can suspend one of the processes which makes performance overall better, yet the remaining working process forces the CPU to stay in maximum performance mode.  Note that your laptop fan will probably come on and stay one while Seti@home is running.  (So I only run it when I'm using a virutal machine, otherwise I disable it.

    Bob Comer - Microsoft MVP Virtual Machine
     

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  • Friday, October 30, 2009 12:55 PMPRoland Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
     
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    the VIRTUAL machine has assigned 1gb of ram, the actual one has 4gb. ram is not an issue
     
  • Friday, October 30, 2009 2:21 PMBob ComerMVPUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
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    Have you installed the integration components in the virtual machines, that should help?

    If you have, most likely you're running into a power management problem.  You can try setting your power management settings to maximum performance and see if that helps. 

    If it doesn't, you've probably got a laptop like mine where the power management isn't controlled well by the OS, so you have to trick it basically to get good performance.  I use Seti@Home's BOINC client to run a low priority processin the background to foce the PC to not throttle down the speed of the CPU. BOINC defaults to having processes for both cores, but you can suspend one of the processes which makes performance overall better, yet the remaining working process forces the CPU to stay in maximum performance mode.  Note that your laptop fan will probably come on and stay one while Seti@home is running.  (So I only run it when I'm using a virutal machine, otherwise I disable it.

    Bob Comer - Microsoft MVP Virtual Machine
     
  • Wednesday, November 04, 2009 2:55 AMXanadu Vector Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
     
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    Do you really mean minutes? That sounds like something is wrong, possibly the stuff Bob mentioned. You need to super-optimize it to run smoother by disabling everything and using lower resolutions than you normally would. If it's less than minutes, and is just sluggish in general, that's the small price you pay for running a virtual PC.

    Also, did you say the speed was the same in 32-bit as 64-bit? That's good info, thanks! I have 64-bit running XP mode and I was wondering if the 32-bit application overhead was effecting performance at all.

     
  • Wednesday, November 04, 2009 2:14 PMBob ComerMVPUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
     
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    >Also, did you say the speed was the same in 32-bit as 64-bit? That's good info, thanks! I have 64-bit running XP mode and I was wondering if the 32-bit application overhead was effecting performance at all.<

    You shouldn't really notice any speed penalty, the difference between 64-bit and 32-bit mode on PC type processors is very minimal.

    Bob Comer - Microsoft MVP Virtual Machine