Gone 8GB, now virtual PC crashes all the time.

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richms

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#85842 26-Jun-2011 19:37

Put another 4GB in my machine, now I find that I am losing networking in the virtual PCs quite quickly, and then the virtual PC host process will crash, all the VM windows go white and I have to end VMwindow thru task manager for them to close and get the ram back.

Now, it might be because I am now trying to run 3 or 4 at once since I can, instead of struggling to run 2 of them, or it may be something with the network interface driver for the one on the motherboard of this horrible AMD machine, but before I start troubleshooting I thought I would check a few things.

Has anyone else had this happen
Is there a limit to how many VMs you can run? All but one are just copies of the virtual XP mode machine that windows 7 installs for you, the other one has server 2003 installed into it as my backup domain controller for when the junkbox the main one is running on finally dies so I can build a new one and join the domain.

Richard rich.ms

freitasm

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#486180 26-Jun-2011 19:41

You shouldn't have a limit, except for the memory. Also if the machines are busy the limits of number of threads vs CPU vs cores would be something to consider.

richms

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#486181 26-Jun-2011 19:45

Its just done it with only 1 running, and its only running a utorrent and openvpn, nothing intensive. If I go and assign the second VM NIC to the realtek onboard, it also is dead, before I got it to get a lease on the second nic briefly before it died.

Will try back on 4 gigs later this evening and see what happens.

Richard rich.ms

kyhwana2

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#486185 26-Jun-2011 20:04

Could be that your 2nd 4GB of RAM is bad.. try running a memtest over it?

richms

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#486186 26-Jun-2011 20:06

It was fine in the machine it came out of, will do a memtest tomorrow if pulling it out solves it. There were some windows updates installed when I shutdown to install it, not been done in about 3 months so it could also have been one of them that has done something. Argh computers.

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#486236 26-Jun-2011 23:07

Ok, its nothing to do with the ram, I am back on my original 4 gigs and its still doing it, even with one VM running. Grr. cant even ping the host machine after a while even with a static assignment. Gonna try them in a fresh install and see if that behaves.

Thing is, heaps of windows updates and the install of the new avira happened on the same shutdown to put the ram in so its a "could be anything" situation

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#486248 27-Jun-2011 00:38

Ok, its behaving itself from a fresh install on the same hardware, same .VHD's with 4 gigs, so yet another thing wrong with my old install that has all my apps installed on it.

Might just finally bite the bullet over this week and move to a new installation and get everything I need installed. First up office and see if I can convince it to not redownload everything from the imap accounts.

Richard rich.ms

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#486253 27-Jun-2011 01:11

check your pagefile size. if its too small and tries to expand then that could be causing issues.

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richms

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#487812 30-Jun-2011 12:54

Ok, now the second installation of windows 7 is having the same problem, and its got worse. Even starting a new VM based off the windows xp mode base image will die as soon as it tries to do the networking (just after asking the PC name and admin password in windows setup)

Turning off the network interfaces (setting them all to not connected) solves it. Even tried it with the first one on NAT and it dies at that point. once installed it dies as soon as I enable networking.

I have tried removing and reinstalling the driver for the onboard realtek 8111c or whatever it is (the driver lists several chips supported) and no change. Removed and reinstalled virtual PC in both installs of windows and the same thing happens.

I am suspecting something either along the lines of hardware failure or something more sinister affecting the network stack. Im going to try a fresh HDD, fresh install of 7 and see if XP mode works on that OK, then try reintroducing my VM's.

Should my VM based off the xp mode base image off my old install work when I move the vhd to a machine with a fresh install of it? Like is the file identical between installations of windows XP mode. Obvioulsy my installs of server and linuxes will be fine since they are not differenceing off the image that microsoft supplied, but a bulk of what I want is in the windows XP ones.

Richard rich.ms

webwat

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#489409 4-Jul-2011 22:14

kyhwana2: Could be that your 2nd 4GB of RAM is bad.. try running a memtest over it?

You did take precautions against static when touching the cards of course... Right?

Time to find a new industry!

richms

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#489425 4-Jul-2011 22:44

Just the usual ones of holding the case.

Ran the tests for as long as I could tollerate being without PC, all fine, back on 4 gigs and it was dying as soon as the VM tried to use the network.

Fresh install of 7 (accidenally used professional not the one I should have used for the license on the case.. oops) and its working fine even with all 5 VMs open at once.

I am now thinking that its something to do with a network driver update or something, since I am using the windows supplied drivers for everythign, whereas on the other install I had used the actual realtek drivers so I could try to get vlans working (and no, you cant connect a VM to a virtual VLAN interface which is what I wanted to do) - but it was working sweetas for ages with those drivers.

Im going to try updating things and see what happens, but I think I will just install my apps on the new install and bring my profile across.

Richard rich.ms