Some Windows VM are Very Slow, Some Are Totally Fine

Ulfric

Member
May 14, 2019
3
1
23
118
Hello,

I apologize as this is a reoccurring thread topic but ive tried everything suggested and feel like I may be missing something because my VM following all the "best practices" is the slowest and actually at the point where it is unusable after installing the VirtIO drivers and the guest agent

Slow/unusable VM:
Code:
agent: 1
balloon: 0
boot: order=ide0;ide2;net0
cores: 8
cpu: host
cpuunits: 1024
ide0: local-lvm:vm-666-disk-0,cache=writeback,size=256G
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1.248.iso,media=cdrom,size=715188K
machine: pc-i440fx-8.1
memory: 16384
meta: creation-qemu=8.1.5,ctime=1713817975
name: Win10-Dev
net0: virtio=BC:24:11:5E:EF:E7,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
ostype: win10
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=2b119aa8-97bd-46b3-b4ae-422fe1555415
sockets: 1
vmgenid: 85c02605-196d-49d7-a1c4-3fed589d74d2

Fresh install VM thats a bit slow but much better than above:
Code:
boot: order=ide0;ide2;net0
cores: 2
cpu: x86-64-v2-AES
ide0: local-lvm:vm-669-disk-0,size=64G
ide2: local:iso/Win10_22H2_English_x64v1.iso,media=cdrom,size=5997046K
machine: pc-i440fx-8.1
memory: 4096
meta: creation-qemu=8.1.5,ctime=1713818041
name: Win10-Testing
net0: e1000=BC:24:11:3E:3C:B8,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,link_down=1
numa: 0
ostype: win10
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=57dda8d8-aed4-4914-8913-d34dfc13f2c5
sockets: 1
vmgenid: 932e21d1-7d65-4965-91e3-d147201c4a80

And then the VM config of a Pre-Made VM from GOAD (https://github.com/Orange-Cyberdefense/GOAD) that is performing totally fine:
Code:
agent: enabled=1,fstrim_cloned_disks=0,type=virtio
balloon: 0
boot: order=sata0;ide2;net0;sata4;sata5;sata3
cores: 2
cpu: cputype=qemu64
cpuunits: 1024
description: SRV02 - windows server 2019 - 192.168.10.22
ide0: local-lvm:vm-105-cloudinit,media=cdrom
ide2: local:iso/windows_server2019_x64FREE_en-us.iso,media=cdrom,size=5172572K
ipconfig0: gw=192.168.10.1,ip=192.168.10.22/24
kvm: 1
machine: pc-i440fx-8.1
memory: 4096
meta: creation-qemu=8.1.5,ctime=1713816962
name: GOAD-SRV02
nameserver: 192.168.10.1
net0: e1000=BC:24:11:30:BF:D5,bridge=vmbr3,firewall=0,tag=10
numa: 0
onboot: 1
ostype: win10
parent: snapshot-2024-04-23--08-01
sata0: local-lvm:vm-105-disk-0,discard=ignore,size=40G
sata3: none,media=cdrom
sata4: none,media=cdrom
sata5: none,media=cdrom
scsihw: lsi
smbios1: uuid=cb3b3c22-9679-4608-b706-038364fc0238
sockets: 1
vmgenid: 96434008-80f4-4131-a936-3b490818b34d


Any insight why my Win10-Dev machine is performing so poorly? its the the point where I cant even use the search feature, it will literally crash. I need to use the "run" feature to open up PowerShell. Compile times on visual studio are 30 seconds + for a basic console application. Installing the guest agent and updated VirtIO drivers seem to have killed the search feature somehow...
 
Little update, I re-installed windows and installed the QEMU agent and virtio drivers immediately instead of installing all my applications first, also set my machine to "Q35" instead of the default to see if that would help. I also followed all the best practices during set up instead of fixing the settings after deployment.

This Windows machine is running much better, but still not as quick as the GOAD machines, also the search bar is working again.
 
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