Troubleshooting virtualbox problems

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 2:37pm

Hi all,

I have a newly installed PC with EndeavourOS where Virtualbox 6.1.14 is installed.
The only box is a W10 1909. The same box was used in the last years on a PC with Ubuntu 16.04.
After switching to EOS I found that the performance of Virtualbox is worse than on Ubuntu. This is really strange, because the new PC is a i3-9100 and the PC before is a i5-3470.

I have checked all logfiles, but I can not see errors or warnings that would guide me to the cause of the problem. Searching the forum did not give me a hint, where I can start my search to troubleshoot this problem.

Any hint is appreciated!

Kind regards
Martin

SGS · February 22, 2020, 3:16pm

Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz	$209.99	9512	45.30	2083	9.92	77	123	Apr 2012	LGA
Intel Core i3-9100F @ 3.60GHz	$89.79	       8896	99.08	2402	26.75	65	136	May 2019	FCLGA1151-2
Intel Core i3-9100 @ 3.60GHz 	$144.95	8636	59.59	2326	16.05	65	132	Jun 2019	FCLGA1151-2
Intel Core i3-9100T @ 3.10GHz	$122.00*	7688	63.02	2129	17.46	35	219	Jul 2019	FCLGA1151-2
Intel Core i5-3470 @ 3.20GHz	        $66.99	6735	100.54	1916	28.60	77	87	Jul 2012	LGA1155
Intel Core i5-3470S @ 2.90GHz	$230.00	6411	27.88	1861	8.10	65	98	Jul 2012	LGA1155
Intel Core i5-3470T @ 2.90GHz	$308.95	4500	14.57	1832	5.93	35	128	Jun 2012	LGA1155

Post inxi from both.

inxi -Fxxxrza

There is only one 3770K from 2012 (seems better then the new ones) but many 3470 9100.
The difference between i5-3470 and i3-9100T is not big.
And your feeling (I found) is not a recognized unit of measurement.

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 3:44pm

I only can provide the inxi output from the new PC, because the old Ubuntu installation is already deleted …

System:
  Host: xxxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxxx Kernel: 5.5.5-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 
  compiler: gcc v: 9.2.1 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/mapper/vg0-rootvol rw 
  cryptdevice=/dev/disk/by-uuid/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx:cryptlvm:allow-discards 
  rd.luks.options=discard quiet audit=0 loglevel=3 
  resume=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Desktop: Gnome 3.34.4 wm: gnome-shell dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: EndeavourOS 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Shuttle product: xxxxx v: V1.0 serial: N/A 
  Mobo: Shuttle model: xxxxx v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1.05 date: xx/xx/xxxx 
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Keyboard xxxx 
  serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
  status: Discharging 
  Device-2: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech xxxx serial: <filter> 
  charge: 15% rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i3-9100 bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake family: 6 model-id: 9E (158) stepping: B (11) 
  microcode: CA L1 cache: 256 KiB L2 cache: 6144 KiB L3 cache: 6144 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 28808 
  Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 800/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 900 
  3: 900 4: 900 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model 
  vendor: Holco Enterprise Co /Shuttle driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e91 
  Display: server: X.Org 1.20.7 driver: intel 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa compositor: gnome-shell 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing. 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Holco Enterprise Co /Shuttle 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a348 
  Device-2: Dell DELL PROFESSIONAL SOUND BAR xxxxx type: USB 
  driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus ID: 1-9:7 chip ID: xxxx:xxxx 
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam xxxx type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
  bus ID: 1-12.3:9 chip ID: 046d:0802 serial: <filter> 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.5.5-arch1-1 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network vendor: Holco Enterprise Co /Shuttle 
  driver: igb v: 5.6.0-k port: 3000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 8086:1539 
  IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-1: vboxnet0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 5.57 TiB used: 1.63 TiB (29.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS120G2G0B-00EPW0 
  size: 111.80 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 0000 scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD20SPZX-22UA7T0 
  size: 1.82 TiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 1A01 scheme: GPT 
  ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD40EZRX-00SPEB0 
  size: 3.64 TiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 4096 B 
  rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 1065 scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 87.19 GiB size: 85.32 GiB (97.86%) 
  used: 30.59 GiB (35.9%) fs: ext4 block size: 4096 B dev: /dev/dm-2 
  ID-2: /boot raw size: 500.0 MiB size: 476.2 MiB (95.24%) 
  used: 89.4 MiB (18.8%) fs: ext4 block size: 1024 B dev: /dev/sda2 
  ID-3: /home raw size: 1.82 TiB size: 1.78 TiB (97.86%) 
  used: 404.39 GiB (22.2%) fs: ext4 block size: 4096 B dev: /dev/dm-5 
  ID-4: swap-1 size: 24.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap 
  swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) dev: /dev/dm-1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  Active pacman repo servers in: /etc/pacman.d/endeavouros-mirrorlist 
  1: https://github.com/endeavouros-team/mirrors/releases/download/mirror1/
  2: https://github.com/endeavouros-team/mirrors/releases/download/mirror2/
  Active pacman repo servers in: /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist 
  1: https://mirror.23media.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  2: https://arch.jensgutermuth.de/$repo/os/$arch
  3: https://mirror.bethselamin.de/$repo/os/$arch
  4: https://mirror.metalgamer.eu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  5: https://mirror.ubrco.de/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  6: https://mirrors.n-ix.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  7: https://mirror.selfnet.de/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  8: https://mirror.netcologne.de/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  9: https://mirror.orbit-os.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  10: https://mirror.f4st.host/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  11: https://arch.unixpeople.org/$repo/os/$arch
  12: https://mirror.wtnet.de/arch/$repo/os/$arch
  13: https://mirror.gnomus.de/$repo/os/$arch
  14: https://mirror.fra10.de.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
  15: https://ger.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch
Info:
  Processes: 363 Uptime: 11h 40m Memory: 15.07 GiB used: 3.63 GiB (24.1%) 
  Init: systemd v: 244 Compilers: gcc: 9.2.1 Shell: bash (sudo) v: 5.0.16 
  running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.37

The former PC is a i5-3470S to be correct. The main performance is not the processor but the hard drive. I can see with system monitor or iotop that it is lower than 5MB/s. The hard drive is the ID-2 in the list above.

Any ideas where to search?

FLVAL · February 22, 2020, 4:47pm

Could you show the setup of your Vbox ?

ricklinux · February 22, 2020, 4:59pm

@marteng69
(The only box is a W10 1909)
So does this mean you have Windows 10 on the computer with EndeavourOS installed on virtualbox?

The i3-9100 is as @SGS say’s not much different than the i5-3470 other than it’s memory support for DDR4 2400. The memory is faster but the processor difference is negligible. I do see that Gnome is using twice the ram that my Plasma install is using. You do have 16 GB memory but it’s not always how much memory you have but what processes and or services that are running and tying up the cpu. My suggestion would be to try Xfce. Or even Plasma if you are using it in vbox as you can try what ever you like then.

JR29 · February 22, 2020, 5:02pm

hello ,which kernel module do you use

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 5:28pm

See screenshot. Sorry it is german!

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 5:32pm

No, vice versa.
I am running EOS with Gnome and W10 is in the VBox.

Thanks for the ideas. Memory is related to the fact, that I have a lot of services running on that PC (DNS, DHCP, LDAP, NFS, Apache, Maria-DB etc.). All those services have been running on the previous PC too.

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 5:35pm

virtualbox-host-modules-arch
virtualbox-guest-modules-arch

I also tried virtualbox-host-dkms, but this did not help.

ricklinux · February 22, 2020, 5:49pm

Okay so are you having the issue then with Windows 10 being slow on virtualbox? Or just EOS gnome?

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 6:06pm

EOS Gnome is fine and running like I expect.
W10 in the VBox, especially the hard drive performance is my problem. The W10 Vbox needs more than three minutes for the startup.

JR29 · February 22, 2020, 6:07pm

how much ram do you put for your VM

ricklinux · February 22, 2020, 6:17pm

Definitely something isn’t right there. I would suspect it more to be with the Windows install on v-box than with EOS. 3 Minutes … ??? Hmm?

Amsterdam4572 · February 22, 2020, 6:29pm

I have windows 10 in Virtualbox, running on EOS. Boots in less than 20 seconds…so maybe you can check against some of my settings?

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 6:30pm

4GB of 16GB

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 6:31pm

Yes, I would appreciate to check against your settings. See mine in the screenshot above.

JR29 · February 22, 2020, 6:32pm

that’s what i put for my VMs

Amsterdam4572 · February 22, 2020, 6:34pm

marteng69 · February 22, 2020, 6:58pm

I changed the settings of my W10 VBox to yours. But still the startup is very slow.
What I can see is a high IOWAIT percentage up to 150% or more.

Amsterdam4572 · February 22, 2020, 7:08pm

maybe try turning on use host i/o cache, as you are running more services on your machine than I am? Also see if you can bump the ram allocated?