changing swappiness fixed it.

happened on two separate boxes.

max_cstate is not available for default kernel of unbuntu hardy desktop (8.04)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/206864
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-acpi%40vger.kernel.org/msg10354.html

Tools is installed.

I had to exit workstation and sudo from the command line in order to modify options on the memory tab under preferences…

Host RAM for all virtual machines: slider is all the way to the right – 2965MB.
Fit all vm memory in reserved host ram is selected.
Under the priority tab, I unchecked the take and restore snapshots.

When I started workstation up after I made the changes, I had to reopen the vm (the vm tabs were gone). No big deal, but…

I’ll test the swappiness after these changes.

OK – I’ll keep you posted! Thanks for your help.

I advise you to use “top” in a terminal, as root, to get some reliable info.

Concerning your performance problem, you should not swap within the virtual machine with such an impressive of allocated memory.

How much physical memory do you have ? Maybe, the problem is that your machine lacks of memory and makes your Ubuntu swapping…

To boost performance, I use the following settings :

(1) in the options of VMWare, I deactivate “taking snapshots in the background” and, in the memory section, I force all the virtual memory to fit in the available physical memory (no swap)

(2) I also adjust the swappiness parameter of the linux kernel.

By default, the linux kernel uses quite often the swap even if you still have plenty of free memory.

You can change this behaviour with this command :
echo “15″ > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

I use “15″, which gives a pretty high priority to the physical memory, before the kernel uses the swap. By default, the value is 60. The higher, the more it will use the swap.

After testing, you can make it permanent by adding such a line at the end of /etc/sysctl.conf :

vm.swappiness = 15

(3) I would, anyway, just try to reduce the memory amount you allocate to you VM. Just in case.

(4) Also check the processes runing on your XP when it is slow ! Are you sure that your Windows image did not get infected by some trojan or virus ?

(5) For graphics, did you set up VMWare tools ?

Let me know how it goes.

I have the max_cstate set to 1.

Ubuntu System monitor:
vmware-vmx – Virtual Memory = 1.7GB, Memory = 0

VMware workstation settings for the xp vm:
- Memory = 2048MB (on the right the slider is well below the max recommended – which should prevent swapping)
- Processors = 1
- Hard Disk 40GB pre-allocated

in the winxp vm:

Many thanks for any assistance.

Donovan