Having trouble with VMware/Virtualbox.. hangs...

[aceo07]

I have a new x61t with Vista SP1 and original Lenovo install. C2D 1.6ghz with 3GB ram. I've updated all the existing thinkadvantage software on the laptop.

I've tried VirtualBox 2 and 1.6, as well as VMWare Server 1.07 and 2beta. They all will freeze up (system unresponsive, no mouse/keyboard/video/drive activity) after 2-3 seconds of loading a vm and booting it up. I will use the default machine setting when creating a new vm. I've also tried running it under admin mode. I am trying to run Ubuntu under vm. The boot iso is fine, since it has been proven to work.

The only one that doesn't freeze on me when starting up a virtual machine is VirtualBox 2. VB 2 needs to have the Intel VT option on, else it also freezes on startup. I wouldn't mind VirtualBox2, but its VBsvc application seems to like to use up one of my cores even when the vm is idling.

Any ideas on what could be causing my troubles? Thanks for any ideas or insight!

[msb0b]

I have experienced the "freeze up" with VMWare Server. The task manager indicates the process is consuming all the physical memory. The disk is thrashing the whole time this goes on. After about 3 minutes, the disk thrashing stops and everything return to normal and functional state.

I didn't have this problem with WinXP.

VMware says Server is only tested on Windows Server OS's and not supported on workstation OS's.

[carbon_unit]

When you setup your virtual machines are you allowing them all of your physical memory? I never give them any more than half of my physical memory. For instance, I have XP (Guest) running in a virtual machine with 768 memory and a 10 gb hard drive but my R61 has 2gb memory and a 120gb hard drive (Linux Host).

[aceo07]

When you setup your virtual machines are you allowing them all of your physical memory? I never give them any more than half of my physical memory. For instance, I have XP (Guest) running in a virtual machine with 768 memory and a 10 gb hard drive but my R61 has 2gb memory and a 120gb hard drive (Linux Host).

Nope only about 800MB out of my 3GB.

On Virtualbox 2, which does work when it's set to use intel VT, it will also freeze if I turn off the VT setting for the virtual machine. It's always a clean vm since it always freezes when I go to install the OS.

VMware Player 2 does work for me, while VMware Server doesn't. I used an existing vm from VMware server that I copied from work.

I'll try to create a new vm on my desktop and copy it to the x61t and see if it will do a fresh install on the vm.

[aceo07]

For some reason, VMware player can let me install now. I also tried VMware server with an empty vm.

I think this is resolved for me now. Though I don't know why it didn't work before.

I'll stick to using Vmware player since Virtualbox still has issues with their vbsvc using too much memory and hogging the cpu too much.

[TikaC]

I use VMWare Server on my T61 to test things for work. I have it run an Ubuntu Hardy LAMP server. I noticed that it 'hangs' too, once started the first time after a reboot. Actually, it's just taking a really really really really REALLY LOOOOOOONG time to load and run. I just let it go for a few minutes and eventually it runs and I can start up whatever VM I want. From there it's fine. When installing the VMWare server, I also got a message saying that it wasn't designed for workstation machines, etc. Also it gave an error about not being able to configure IIS (which I also have running). But outside of that, everything works fine.

Just have to wait a LONG time to let VMWare load up and run. It will come back up ok from sleep mode, I've found. I haven't tested in from Hibernation though.

I also noticed that if you then close VMWare server and then do other things, when you reopen it, it will load up MUCH faster than it did when it loads up from a fresh bootup of the PC itself. So it probably is just trying to load the server service or whatever the first time around and that's probably what takes a long time.

[David Ross]

I'll stick to using Vmware player since Virtualbox still has issues with their vbsvc using too much memory and hogging the cpu too much.

FWIW, I've got both installed on my X61t and find that they work about equally well but VB (2.02) has a bit less overhead. I pretty much don't use VM Player anymore, though partly that is because I didn't like the premade Ubuntu VM appliance and made myself a VB Ubuntu machine I prefer.

David