Windows VM - Blackscreen after irregular intervals

[Pixelpaule]

Hello, everyone,

 

unfortunately I have problems with my Windows 10 VM. If I don't control the VM via Remote Desktop or VNC for some time, I can't connect via VNC or RD again. The VM seems to freeze. I have deactivated all functions for automatic energy saving. So the VM does not switch automatically into sleep mode. Also the monitor is not switched off automatically. No monitor is connected to my unRaid server. I administrate the server exclusively via Remote Apps.

 

But the VM seems not to freeze completely. For example, I can still access my music library in MediaMonkey via UPnP. 

 

Restarting the VM does not change anything. Only when I stop the VM via Force Stop and also restart the array in unRaid, I can connect again via Remote Desktop or VNC.  I have attached the diagnostic data.

 

I hope you can help me.

homeserver-diagnostics-20200812-1304.zip

Edited September 27, 2020 by Pixelpaule

[Pixelpaule]

Hello everyone,

 

unfortunately I could not solve the problem with my unRaid server and the Windows VM. I will try to describe the problem again and hope that somebody can help me? I've attached my new diagnostic data. I created the data right after the black screen appeared.

 

I have currently reconnected my unRaid server to my two monitors so that I can work directly with the Windows VM natively (via passthrough). Unfortunately I always have a black screen after irregular intervals. In this case both monitors don't show the picture anymore and only a "force stop" helps. But the unRaid system is still running. I use Windows occasionally for a two use cases and for gaming. I use my AMD RX 580 with a self dumped VBIOS.

 

I really hope someone can help me with this problem?

 

I've no idea how i can resolved the Problem.

 

Kind regards 

Andre

homeserver-diagnostics-20200923-2205.zip

[Pixelpaule]

hey, is there anyone who can help me?  I can't solve the problem alone.
 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Pixelpaule

[bitcore]

I'm seeing this same Phenomenon. Unraid 6.8.3. Threadripper 3960x on an ASRock TRX40 Creator.

 

Fresh W10 20H2 install, fully updated. No PCI-E pass through, no extra shares added to the guest. VirtIO ISO version 1.185

i440fx-4.2, OVMF, Hyper-V: Yes (What does that ACTUALLY do, extend hyper-V functions to the guest?), USB 2.0 EHCI, VirtIO disk. It's effectively a default configuration as far as I'm aware.

 

 

It seems to randomly freeze it's GUI after being idle. Same symptoms as OP, noVNC locks up and remote desktop fails, but some OS network-based functions remain available (EG, it responds to Ping).

 

Win 10 Guest stuff:

Turn off display after: never

Advanced power settings:

Turn off hard disk: 0 minutes

No options for sleep, but allow wake timers is set to: enable

USB Settings: USB Selective Suspend Setting: Enabled. I'm trying this set to disabled now, if this resolves it I'll try to remember to post back (if I forget, please remind me and I'll do so.)

 

[bitcore]

Update:

I resolve this issue for me.

Rebuilding the VM from scratch and switching to the Q45 chipset seemed to resolve my issue. I'm also now able to use the same VM as a base image to clone multiple other VM's from. (I have to make a new vm give it a name, save it, copy the XML from my template VM, paste it into the XML for my new VM, correc the <name></name> tag to MATCH the new VM's name and not the template! Remove the contents of <uuid></uuid> to generate a new VM in libvirt, edit the disk location in <devices><disk><source file="">, and of course change the mac address.

 

Apparently Q45 chipset is PCI-E native, whereas the i440fx is a much older generation that is PCI-first. So for new OS's: use Q45, for old OS's: use i440fx. I do wish that the GUI Help/Tips context menu didn't direct users to try and get a VM working on i440 first, since it's so old and likely not very true these days.