VM slow, to the point it is unusable [CLOSED]

[ytddewqf]

Good evening all,

 

I am at my wits end trying to figure this out. Its at the point that if I can't resolve it I will need to build a seperate PC instead of a VM.

 

My issue is that my Windows 11 VM is incredibly slow. I have tried multiple variations of the VM template but nothing seems to work. I have even allowed for the VM to use all cores whilst I disengage all my dockers, but still no joy. I have two NVME's, one of which is used for my VM (however the drive is also used for new downloads for speed, so I can't pass through the whole drive bare metal). Lastly, whenever I use my VM, my dockers are left on, but are paused and not doing anything, certainly not enough at idle anyway to cause the system impact that I am experiencing.

 

I have attached my diagnostics if that helps. I'm even prepared to pay someone to resolve the matter. I've used unRaid for around two years now and I would much prefer to keep everything in one machine.

 

For reference, my system has;
i9-10900K cpu
Z490 VISION G motherboard
64GB ram (32GB assigned to my VM)
NVIDIA 3060 (passed through)
4x mechanical HDD's (total 52TB)
1X NVME (512GB cache drive)
1x NVME (2TB new downloads & VM)

 

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

 

tower-diagnostics-20230421-1924.zip

Edited April 27, 2023 by BeardedNoir

[Squid]

Have you tried setting a Trim Schedule (or Trim now) in Settings, Scheduler?

[ytddewqf]

17 minutes ago, Squid said:

Have you tried setting a Trim Schedule (or Trim now) in Settings, Scheduler?

 

Thank you for the suggestion, I haven't tried to be honest, just started a "Trim now". It was disabled so I've set that to daily too. Fingers crossed.

[ytddewqf]

Unfortunately, still the same. Tried restarting several times, including the server, but no difference I'm afraid.

[mackid1993]

Try taking 

  <memoryBacking>
    <nosharepages/>
    <source type='memfd'/>
    <access mode='shared'/>
  </memoryBacking>

out of your XML. This is used for VirtioFS and when I have this in the XML (it is in by default now), it causes my VM to slowly lock up. This issue with memorybacking has been widely reported. Perhaps it is causing your issue?

[ytddewqf]

5 minutes ago, mackid1993 said:

Try taking 

  <memoryBacking>
    <nosharepages/>
    <source type='memfd'/>
    <access mode='shared'/>
  </memoryBacking>

out of your XML. This is used for VirtioFS and when I have this in the XML (it is in by default now), it causes my VM to slowly lock up. This issue with memorybacking has been widely reported. Perhaps it is causing your issue?

 

Thank you for the suggestion. 

 

Checking my template, I only seem to have the below, is that still worth taking out? 

 

 

 

[SimonF]

5 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

 

Thank you for the suggestion. 

 

Checking my template, I only seem to have the below, is that still worth taking out? 

 

 

 

Have you tried reducing ram from 32GB?

[mackid1993]

12 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

 

Thank you for the suggestion. 

 

Checking my template, I only seem to have the below, is that still worth taking out? 

 

 

 

No actually, it's the 

<source type='memfd'/>
<access mode='shared'/>

that causes the instability for me. The way you have it is just fine. The issue must be something else.

[ytddewqf]

30 minutes ago, SimonF said:

Have you tried reducing ram from 32GB?

 

Hi, to be honest I originally assigned 16GB of ram to the VM, but had the same issues so then increased it to 32GB thinking that would help but unfortunately it didn't.

[SimonF]

11 minutes ago, BeardedNoir said:

 

Hi, to be honest I originally assigned 16GB of ram to the VM, but had the same issues so then increased it to 32GB thinking that would help but unfortunately it didn't.

Are you virtio drivers on latest? Also remove first two cores Unraid will be competing with that as it doesn't have dedicated cores

[ytddewqf]

31 minutes ago, SimonF said:

Are you virtio drivers on latest? Also remove first two cores Unraid will be competing with that as it doesn't have dedicated cores

 

Thanks for the suggestion, just updated the drivers now to the latest, they were on one below. I've also done as you said for the cores, albeit I had originally assigned the last ten cores to the VM but as that did not work I thought I'd try allowing all of them, I've now removed the first two as you suggested though.

 

Unfortunately my original issues remain.

[mackid1993]

I hate to say this, but I had a similar issue a while back when my Win 11 VM got insanely slow. I use the VM backup plugin to take monthly backups of my VM's vdisk. Restoring from a backup fixed it for me. Have you tried simply spinning up a new VM to see if it performs normally? Perhaps it is an issue with Windows and not with unRAID? 

[ytddewqf]

1 hour ago, mackid1993 said:

I hate to say this, but I had a similar issue a while back when my Win 11 VM got insanely slow. I use the VM backup plugin to take monthly backups of my VM's vdisk. Restoring from a backup fixed it for me. Have you tried simply spinning up a new VM to see if it performs normally? Perhaps it is an issue with Windows and not with unRAID? 

 

Cheers mate, thanks for the suggestion, appreciate it, unfortunately this is my seventh VM instance and it hasn't improved. I think I'll just resign myself to building a seperate PC.

 

Thanks for everyone's suggestions though.

[SimonF]

On 4/23/2023 at 6:58 PM, BeardedNoir said:

 

Cheers mate, thanks for the suggestion, appreciate it, unfortunately this is my seventh VM instance and it hasn't improved. I think I'll just resign myself to building a seperate PC.

 

Thanks for everyone's suggestions though.

Have you tried tips and tweaks plugin. Check cpu governor is set to performance.

[ytddewqf]

16 hours ago, SimonF said:

Have you tried tips and tweaks plugin. Check cpu governor is set to performance.

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes it's already set to performance, but thanks anyway.

[SimonF]

3 hours ago, BeardedNoir said:

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes it's already set to performance, but thanks anyway.

If you run resource monitor on the machine, what does it look like? i.e. are you getting lots of IOWAITs etc?

 

[SimonF]

8 hours ago, BeardedNoir said:

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes it's already set to performance, but thanks anyway.

Also do you need hyperv support? try turning off there are reports for slowness with win11 but that was on amd. But worth a try?

[shpitz461]

Have you isolated some cores to be used only by the VM?

in Unraid, goto Settings > CPU Pinning.

Try to isolate 4-6 cores (8-12 with threading) and see if you get better performance.

Also, it is beneficial if you post your xml (copied while the VM is off).

What machine-type are you using? i440 or Q35? Try with Q35.

 

[ytddewqf]

12 hours ago, SimonF said:

Also do you need hyperv support? try turning off there are reports for slowness with win11 but that was on amd. But worth a try?

 

11 hours ago, shpitz461 said:

Have you isolated some cores to be used only by the VM?

in Unraid, goto Settings > CPU Pinning.

Try to isolate 4-6 cores (8-12 with threading) and see if you get better performance.

Also, it is beneficial if you post your xml (copied while the VM is off).

What machine-type are you using? i440 or Q35? Try with Q35.

 

 

Gents, thank you both kindly for your suggestions, however I have now decided to go the seperate PC route.

 

Thanks again.