Windows 11 - CPU Spike

[peterbata]

I created a Windows 11 VM which is a fresh install. I have allocated 32GB of ram and CPU's 14+15 - HT 34+35. From the time I boot the VM and for the next few minutes the CPU's are basically pinned at 100%. Even if I remote into the VM it seems to take forever before I can even bring up the task bar. There is only one other VM running (Windows 10 on CPU's 2,3,4,5) It is running but there reallu is little to no activity at the moment. Is this normal and did I do somthing wrong? Thank you for your time and assistance. Peter

[peterbata]

I just installed another fresh Windows 11 VM. The peformance is horrendous.  It is the only VM at the time of this post. The CPU usage is through the roof.

 

 

[JonathanM]

1. What drive is the VM using for vdisk or passthrough?

2. Try changing the RAM to 8GB

[peterbata]

2 hours ago, JonathanM said:

1. What drive is the VM using for vdisk or passthrough?

2. Try changing the RAM to 8GB

Thank you for chiming in @JonathanM Much appreciated. Are you referring to the vDisk location. It appears to be on Disk 1 which is the 8TB SAS drive in my array. I am pretty new to UR so please forgive me.

 

Edited April 24 by peterbata

[JonathanM]

8 hours ago, peterbata said:

Are you referring to the vDisk location. It appears to be on Disk 1 which is the 8TB SAS drive in my array.

Yep, that would be why the VM is dog slow. vdisks should be on fast pools, not parity protected array disks.

[ijuarez]

12 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Yep, that would be why the VM is dog slow. vdisks should be on fast pools, not parity protected array disks.

 

I just learn something, so are you saying it would be best to have the vm on the cache or and unassigned disk for better performance?

[JonathanM]

12 minutes ago, ijuarez said:

 

I just learn something, so are you saying it would be best to have the vm on the cache or and unassigned disk for better performance?

Yes, the parity array is great for mass storage, very bad for random I/O, especially random writes. SSD or NVME is a must for vdisks.

[peterbata]

1 hour ago, JonathanM said:

Yes, the parity array is great for mass storage, very bad for random I/O, especially random writes. SSD or NVME is a must for vdisks.

I have one unassigned 2TB SATA drive. Would that help? I am using my Samsung EVO 1TB drive as my cache drive. It's the only SSD drive in my system. Unfortunately the HP Z820 that I am using doesn't support NVME natively. The only way around that would be to add an NVME PCIe adapter. I should mention that I also have a Windows 10 X-Lite VM (less all the bloatware) and it performs lightning fast. Thank you for your valuable input @JonathanM It means a lot.

Edited April 24 by peterbata

[peterbata]

What I find odd is that the load seems to be heavier when using the Windows 11 VM almost exclusively. I say this because I do not experience the same load when I have a Windows 10 X-Lite and a Windows Server 2019 running. By the way, the Windows Server 2019 VM was an ESXi VM that I converted to .qcow2 using Starwinds Converter. I have allocated 6 CPU's and 128GB of ram to that VM. Both VM's also reside on Disk 1 of my array. The attached screenshot shows my Server 2019 VM running with audio host apps launched. And, a parity check is running to boot as can be seen in the screenshot as well.

 

I use it as a slave to host my audio sample libraries via Vienna Ensemble Pro and Native Instruments Kontakt. 

Edited April 24 by peterbata

[ijuarez]

I am trying now with a debian install, will try with windows 11 , for me, debian is pretty snappy on the array. However windows 11 was just dog slow and  I gave up.

 

It looks like your giving the vm 8 cores 8 HT are you possible using the same cores for other vms that are running at the same time?

[peterbata]

4 minutes ago, ijuarez said:

I am trying now with a debian install, will try with windows 11 , for me, debian is pretty snappy on the array. However windows 11 was just dog slow and  I gave up.

 

It looks like your giving the vm 8 cores 8 HT are you possible using the same cores for other vms that are running at the same time?

Thank you @ijuarez And good morning (at least where I am located) I made sure not to share cores and HT's. I am about to re-attempt another WIN-11 install as well. Will come back with results. I also D/L Windows 11 Lite. Will use that if all else fails.

 

NOTE: You may receive a message that says: This PC can’t run Windows 11. You probably already know this but there is a Fix for that

Edited April 24 by peterbata

[peterbata]

Installed Windows 11 using the official Microsoft ISO again. So far, the VM is behaving very well and is quite responsive.

Edited April 25 by peterbata

[ijuarez]

that's good to hear, mine is still a little laggy, however I had issues creating the VM when I change it the vdisk from the auto (which was on the array) to A UD disk. (its a sas disk) it would start to create it and just sit at creating, Eventually i was able to create other vm without the hesitation.

 

I am sure that if i was using a nmve it be fast but for now the alma linux vm on the that disk is pretty snappy

[peterbata]

I haven't gotten around to trying out Alma Linux but hope to do so over the weekend. So far, Win11 is really behaving well. Surprisingly well after the issues that I was experiencing.