Slow Performance; Taskmgr.exe hogging CPU

Hey,

I just created a brand new Virtual Server machine, and have dedicated 2 GB
to it. (The server is one of 3 active VM's on a box that has a
3066MHz processor, and 4GB or Ram.) (I have installed SBS 2003 Premium
edition, Vis Studio, etc... and CRM 3.0 EAP version on it.)

My CPU utilization tops out at 100% very often. I've killed the
Indexing Service because that was often the culprit. Often, the
Windows Task Manager will show that it's process, taskmgr.exe, is
hogging much more CPU than I think it should. (10-15 on a regular
basis, sometimes spiking to > 30). System Idle Process is typically
0. Now, one interesting thing is that after I watch Task Manager
for a while, the System Idle process will get back up there, and I
can work again for a few minutes before it crawls again.

But the CPU Usage History on the Performance graph inside of Task
Manager looks like a Halloween like spooky cave, with a bunch of
stalagtites (mites?) coming down the ceiling. (And if anybody had
an EKG that looked like this, they'd probably be dead soon.) The
CPU is NEVER less than 25%.

One more thing: I do have another developer logging in remotely
using either GoToMyPC or Remote Desktop. It does seem slower when
they are logged in, but nothing by itself seems to explain this
ridiculously high usage of the CPU.

Does anybody have any clues why this is, and of course, what I can
do about it? I know I'm not memory bound, going from 1.5GB to 2GB
did help, for a while, but now its slow again...

Many thanks,
Dave

 

I take it you are discussing the CPU use in the guest OS. Please confirm
this.
and if so, what's the CPU use in the host like?

What sort of drives is the host using? (SCSI, SATA, IDE? RAID? What
percentage of free space?)

Do you mean you have installed SBS 2003 Premium Edition, Vis Studio, etc...
and CRM 3.0 EAP version into distinct virtual machines or is this all in the
one? If all three are in the one vm I think the CPU use is normal. (yes, I
note you have three VM's, it's just not clear that you are referring to
seperate installations, and whether these other vm's are doing anything at
this point)

Is this a test or production system? If production how many users are
accessing it?

Though this is the timeframe I expect it to happen in, Exchange running in a
vm is not supported last I looked, if this has changed do you have a link to
the notification?

 

with Exchange 2003 sp2 on the box it is now supported.

 

Thanks for replying,
Yes, I am discussing the CPU in the guest.
Host using RAID 5 SCSI.
Host has only 811MB on C. 7+ GB's on Virtual Server drive.
Virtual disk one (C) is expanded to 13.4 out of 16GB.
Less than 1 GB out of 16 used on second drive.

I installed SBS 2003 Premium Edition, Vis Studio, and CRM 3.0 EAP version
into this one virtual machine (have been doing this for over a year; noticed
slow performance about a month ago on one VM... That was one of the main
reasons I created this new one just last week.

All VM's are dev machines, only 1 or 2 people on them at any one time.

I installed Exchange, but don't really use it - should I turn these services
off?

 

c'mon, pretend I know NOTHING about your system.

you managed to install an OS on an 811MB C: partition? there's 7+GB on the
VS drive but it contains a VS HDD with 13.4GB used, that's a trick I'd like
to learn how to do? Are you running compression on those drives (compressed
host or guest drives?)?