W2K guest hangs with 100% CPU on host with VMware 5

[Michael Steiner]

Hi,

Unfortunately, my W2K dual-boot/raw disk guest randomly starts hanging
and consuming 100% CPU time of my linux RHEL 3U4/2.4.21-27 host. The
only way to recover is reset the machine.

The vmware.log does not say anything around this time other then
entries like the following, yet as far as I understand they are
insignificant:

May 10 08:40:17: mks| MKS lost grab
May 10 08:40:27: vcpu-0| SOUND: ignoring attempt by guest to specify
fragment size

The only common things about the hangs is that they seemed to be
related to network activity, e.g., it happened while opening a page in
IE, accessing a Notes DB or a remote filesystem. (BTW: I run the
network in host-only mode)

Interestingly, this problem occurs only since I upgraded from 4.5.2 to
5.0 (13124). Before, I could run that image for months without any
such problems.

I did upgrade the Virtual Machine HW as well as upgrade the VMWare
Tools. In fact, after the problem occurred, I even uninstall and
reinstalled the tools and made sure that the Video and network driver
do use the latest ones.

I also did try remove USB support (which caused previously some
problems with 4.5.2 and linux 2.4) and floppy as well as cd are not
connected.

Any suggestions/help?

-michael-

PS: Similar hangs I also get sometimes during shutdown or reboots
(after the desktop has disappeared) ...

[Michael Steiner]

Post by Michael Steiner
Unfortunately, my W2K dual-boot/raw disk guest randomly starts hanging
and consuming 100% CPU time of my linux RHEL 3U4/2.4.21-27 host. The
only way to recover is reset the machine.
[...]
Interestingly, this problem occurs only since I upgraded from 4.5.2 to
5.0 (13124). Before, I could run that image for months without any
such problems.

Further investigation showed that it was not as initially suspected the
network but sound: If I remove the sound device from my virtual
machine, the hangs cease to occur.

Notes
- just disconnecting the sound device (but still leave it defined in the
vmware definition) does still cause the hangs!
- it also did not help to re-install the sound driver and/or remove the
device completely in W2K and let the hardware wizard define it again...

Any help appreciated!

-michael-

[anonymous]

Post by Michael Steiner

Post by Michael Steiner
Unfortunately, my W2K dual-boot/raw disk guest randomly starts hanging
and consuming 100% CPU time of my linux RHEL 3U4/2.4.21-27 host. The
only way to recover is reset the machine.
[...]
Interestingly, this problem occurs only since I upgraded from 4.5.2 to
5.0 (13124). Before, I could run that image for months without any
such problems.

Further investigation showed that it was not as initially suspected the
network but sound: If I remove the sound device from my virtual
machine, the hangs cease to occur.
Notes
- just disconnecting the sound device (but still leave it defined in the
vmware definition) does still cause the hangs!
- it also did not help to re-install the sound driver and/or remove the
device completely in W2K and let the hardware wizard define it again...
Any help appreciated!
-michael-

If it's any consolation, I am experiencing the same issue:

Jul 11 13:20:54: vcpu-0| SOUND: ignoring attempt by guest to specify
fragment size