Virtual PC

[gilgamish]

How can I improve an extremely poor network performane for a virtual machine configured with MS Virtual PC with the following specs:
-Compaq EVO D300 2.4 GHz Intel CPU
- 256 PC133 RAM (also configured for Virtual machine)
- 15 GB HD, 12 GB Free space (also configured for Virtual machine)
- 10/100 Mbps Intel Pro Ethernet card

What could cause poor performance in combination with those specs? Unless the product itself is having hard times.
Have anyone encountered such problems? Please advice.

 

[Abzstrak]

first off, your amount of ram sucks, I'd put 1gb in a host OS minimum, and set 512MB for the virtual machine minimum... pretend its two seperate computers. Also, most 15GB HDD's were kinda slow compared to modern drives, consider buying a new one, 7200rpm 8mb cache, or 10000rpm

 

[mikecel79]

I'm having an issue with some of my virtual machines when trying to pull a file off the host machine. If I browse to the host machine from my virtual machine I get awful network performance and eventually times out when trying to copy a file. Haven't been able to figure it out yet. Are you having network performance problems connecting to the host machine or other machines on your network?

 

[gilgamish]

First of all Sir, I disagree with you on the idea that those specs sucks. coz I know from MS site that system requirement for VPC is 128 RAM and 2GB free space. and I think Im way beyond that.
Rather, the probelm exists on networking capabilities.
I advice us to dig deeper

 

[rbrandon]

Actually Abzstrak is on point, and you're wrong, sorry to say. Since you didn't specify your OS, I'm gonna guess some flavor of XP, which recomments AT LEAST 256mb of RAM for the OS itself, so what you're doing is running the host os on the minimal amount of ram, and then running VPC on ITS recommended default value of 128 megs of ram. Youre crippling your machine, ge more (and newer) Ram.

 

[tyanni]

Let me state first off that I agree with Abzstrak - 256 is pitifully low for running what basically amounts to 2 machines on one platform. You have to be insane to run XP with 128 by itself, let alone in a Virtual PC.

However, the ram is not the cause of the poor network performance. I have the same poor network performance and time out issues with an Evo running with 1.5 GB of memory, 512 of it dedicated to the VirtualPC. Yet others running the same specs don't, so I am at a loss.

Adding more ram will definately help speed things up though. I wouldn't run XP on a machine with only 256MB of ram ever.

Tim

 

[Goosemaster]

what type of slowdown are you experience...


give us numbers to go on....

pings....thoroughput etc...

 

[stash]

If you are transferring files between the host and the VPCs, you don't need the network. Just make sure the VPC additions are installed and then drag and drop between the host and VPC or vice versa.

 

[tyanni]

The timeouts I get and error messages like "the file no longer exists at ...." all happen when going from a machine on the network to my VPC, not between the host and the VPC.

Thanks.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: gilgamish
How can I improve an extremely poor network performane for a virtual machine configured with MS Virtual PC with the following specs:
-Compaq EVO D300 2.4 GHz Intel CPU
- 256 PC133 RAM (also configured for Virtual machine)
- 15 GB HD, 12 GB Free space (also configured for Virtual machine)
- 10/100 Mbps Intel Pro Ethernet card

What could cause poor performance in combination with those specs? Unless the product itself is having hard times.
Have anyone encountered such problems? Please advice.

Gilgamish, If I had to take a very early guess I would say it's probably more related to the performance of the Guest rather than something being wrong with your networking setup. I don't really have enough info to give a solid answer yet.

What version of Virtual PC are you running?
You have 256MB for your Host; How much ram to you have configured for the virtual machine?
How many virtual machines are you running?
What Host and Guest operating systems are you running?
How do you have your CPU time set in your performance settings?

 

[Smilin]

Also FYI everyone. Yes 256 definately not ideal, but it should still run pretty well. He may need to run in a 160/96 Host/Guest configuration. If you give them a little room to breath in the pagefile you can run a guest OS in a ridiculously low amount of memory. It's all going to depend on what he's doing with it and what OS's are involved.

 

[bsobel]

I'd try a different NIC...

Bill