CPU usage vmware-vmx at25 % when idle

[gfaerman]

Hi folks,

I am using B4 now, XP bootcamp partition in a MacBookPro CD2, 3GB ram and NOD32 antivirus.

I also have shared folders enabled.

Everything looks good, I mostly use it to run MS SQL Server and Oracle DBs and Yahoo messenger (voice).

The only issue I can see so far is since CPU never goes below the 25% on average when I have all the mentioned process off, at this CPU usage rate, battery consumption is really high. Let me stress that that the 25% CPU is just with NO other processes (all db are shutdown).

Since bootcamp based vmware cannot be suspended, it really bothers me to just shut it down to avoid running out of juice.

Any recomendations to make the bootcamp based vmware session consume less battery when idle?

Thanks in advance,

Gustavo

[nick_couchman]

I'm not familiar with Fusion, but does the VM you're running have vSMP enabled?

[gfaerman]

Thanks for your quick reply.

The virtual machine is configured to use 1 virtual processor (the default value).

Thanks again!

[admin]

spfthink[/url] and limebreeze have reported that skype can cause an idle VM to take 20% instead of the more normal ~5%, perhaps Yahoo messenger is similar?

If you really want, it's possible to enable suspend on bootcamp VMs by editing the vmx. This is not enabled by default because it's possible to mess up your Boot Camp install if you do a native boot in between suspending an resuming. I'll leave exactly how to do this as an exercise to you (I don't want to encourage people to do this), but just reading the vmx file should make it obvious.

[adamsimpson]

How much ram are you giving the VM? Have you looked in the task manager to make sure no background tasks are running in windows? Debugging turned off? Normally my B4 VM runs at around 8% at idle, where my B3 VM was running around 20% on my Core duo macbook.

[gfaerman]

The 25% is with NO user's applications running. No YAHOO, no Skype no MS SQL.

Picture 3.png is a screenshot of vmware's Task Manager sorted by CPU usage, almost 0.

Picture 4.png is the same thing ordered by memory allocation.

Picture5.png is a screenshot of both Activity Monitor and task manager running side by side (I missed to use Unity!!)

Vmware ram is set to 512 MB.

Debugging is set to off.

Thanks a lot for your questions and comments.

With kind regards,

Gustavo

[FlyingRat]

Hi, I've got exactly the same problem. Found any solution yet?

\--

Regards, Lars (lars@twinox.se)

[gfaerman]

Unfortunately not yet.

Also there is another post on the same topic (http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=89766&tstart=0), I think you have already asked there too.

Anyone from Vmware? Pat?

Thanks in advance,

Gustavo.

[lintonmac]

I'm having exactly the same problem. Brand new MacBookPro 17" SantaRosa, 2GB RAM.

XP Pro on Bootcamp partition, 512MB RAM set for Fusion.

Consistently 20-25% cpu usage with essentially nothing going on.

[lintonmac]

So, has anyone solved this problem on the newer SantaRosa-based MBP's using the new beta?

Are they also now using 10.4.10 or still on 10.4.9.

As I understand it if the new beta fixes the problem, I will need to create a new VM using Bootcamp partition, which presumably will require a re-activation of my XP Pro license? I don't wish to do this too many times for the obvious reasons, so I am keen to get it right in one go.

Any clarifications/confirmations would be useful as I am particularly new to the whole area of VM's

Thanks

(MBP 17" HR, 2GB, XP Pro SP2, Bootcamp partition)

[admin]

As I understand it if the new beta fixes the problem,

I will need to create a new VM using Bootcamp

partition, which presumably will require a

re-activation of my XP Pro license? I don't wish to

do this too many times for the obvious reasons, so I

am keen to get it right in one go.

No, recreating your Boot Camp VM (which only contains metadata) should not require reactivation, since doing so does not affect the actual data on your Boot Camp partition.

[aliasme]

If MSN Messenger is running, I am seeing 20-30% CPU usage when idle. As soon as Messenger is killed, the CPU drops to 4-5%. System is 2-cpu on Mac Pro quad.

Annoying!

[Gredo]

If you have an iSight camera connected, try disconnecting it from vmware and see if that helps.

[jops]

VMWare guys, is there still no fix for this? I'm on Version 1.1 (62573) and it's still idling at ~25% for me too. I've tried everything - the things mentioned here, stopping services, and killing windows processes - but nothing fixes it. It even idles at that on the windows login screen. Help please. I keep burning my fingers when working on windows. Killing iTunesHelper.exe reduced the idle slightly but it's still bad.

XP sp2 bootcamp on 10.4.11

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B00

SMC Version: 1.18f2

[jkwuc89]

My VMWare Fusion 1.1.1 Windows XP pro VM was hovering at 25% idle with no USB devices attached. So I tried the following:

Switched from NAT to bridged networking - no effect

Disabled USB 2.0 in the VM settings - no effect

Killed the following processes: allSnap, TaskSwitcherXP, Windows Desktop Search service - no effect

I then killed the process called ProxySwitcher which allows me to quickly and easily turn on/off the proxy server settings without having to dig through the IE property sheet dialog. Killing this process immediately brought my idle vmware-vmx CPU usage from 21 - 25% to 4 - 7%.

Keith Wedinger

Bearcatnews.com

Sciotofootball.com