Hello,
I amnow quitedesperate as this is really stopping me from doing my work.
I deleted Windows and I installed a fresh Kubuntu 14.04.02 (LTS) with 64 bit as my Desktop. I also installed VMWare Workstation 10.0.6 to run my development machines. I'm now having serious problems:
Every now and then, my complete host is freezing if I run a virtualized Windows 7 on my Workstation. The mouse is only moving very slow and all windows are reacting very(!) slow. My CPU monitor showing all 4 CPU on 100%. If I manage to open up the system monitor (or top on console), I can see that vmware-vmx and kwin are burning most of my CPU resources. If I wait between 10 seconds and a minute, the system becomes usable again. Now CPU is going down to normal. But as soon as I start moving a Window around (no matter which), the thing is happening again.
Symptoms in short:
- HOST: Linux Kubuntu 14.04.02 (x64) on Intel i5 CPU with 8GB RAM and running on SSD (ext4).
- GUEST: Several Windows 7 (x32) running several software. 1 CPU and 1GB RAM assigned. Problem is on several guest machines.
- Every now and then, all my 4 CPU taking nearly 100%. The host CPU is used by vmware-vmx and kwin process (used top). Sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes directly after turning on the Guest. No idea about a reason.
- Host Mouse, Windows and OS is operating very very slow.
- During this time, the virtual Windows 7 machine is idle!!! Energy-Saving or Screensaver are all off!
- If I manage to run guests Taskmanager, I can not see some action (sometimes TaskManager itself using 60% CPU!). Looks for me like the host is going down, not the guest!
- My host is running a SSD drive (256 GB).
- The VM logfile does not show something during this phase.
- vmware.log attached.
What I already tried:
- I deactivated "Accelerate 3D" for all my VM's.
- I re-installed VMWare Tools on the guest machines.
- I run VMWare workstation using vblank_mode=0 /usr/bin/vmware
- I re-created the machine with less hardware as possible and reloaded the .vmd.
- I converted the virtual disk image from previous format to current format (VMWare asked me the step before, I said 'yes').
- I inserted a separate Network Card (NIC) and turned off the onboard network adapter in BIOS.
- I turned off the onboard graphics in BIOS and added a NVIDIA GeForce 8400 PCIx16 card (using binary NVIDIA drivers offered by Kubuntu).
- I removed VM's CD-ROM, Audio, Floppy and any other unused hardware.
- I tried to use cpulimit to throttle vmware-vmx and kwin on my host, but no success. System stays unusable in that situation.
No success at all.
Is there anything else I can do to bring back my environment into a productive state? You can imagine that this always happens in the worst situations :-(
Any ideas?
Thank you!