Hello,
When I run CrystalDiskMark on a Windows 10 VM, the system appears to freeze during the benchmark. The system barely responds to mouse input, the GUI barely refreshes, and the display may go blank (no signal) for several seconds.
This happens when benchmarking the device that stores Proxmox and VM disks, but not when benchmarking a separate device.
CPU benchmarks appear to be fine. GPU benchmarks are currently far worse than expected (but was fine before somehow). Disk benchmarks are not that bad.
What can I do to improve the situation? Thank you for any assistance you can provide!
Host hardware
Guest drivers
VM config
Benchmark results
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 850 SSD):
Geekbench (CPU):
Geekbench (Compute):
Somehow the compute benchmark is much worse than what I got before, but I do not see how it can make a difference regarding the mentioned issue:
Update: After uninstalling the HD 7970 graphics card, the GPU benchmark is somehow back to normal. Made no difference to the disk benchmark.
Update: Disabled memory ballooning and Intel SpeedStep in BIOS. No difference.
Changing disk cache from "No cache" to "Write back (unsafe)" made a difference.
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
The "4KiB Q8T8" test is still making the system much less responsive but the improvement is huge. Instead of freezing for several seconds at a time, there are now a few updates per second. The display is no longer losing signal.
Update: Disabled Game bar. Downgraded display driver from 416.34 to 399.07 (one I know works well). One thing I notice is that games perform much better after a reboot this time. Even Battlefield 1 gets more than 100 fps on ultra settings (AA disabled) and 1440p.
Update: Enabling "IO thread" on the VMs main disk also made a difference. The freezing during benchmarking is now completely eliminated!
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
When I run CrystalDiskMark on a Windows 10 VM, the system appears to freeze during the benchmark. The system barely responds to mouse input, the GUI barely refreshes, and the display may go blank (no signal) for several seconds.
This happens when benchmarking the device that stores Proxmox and VM disks, but not when benchmarking a separate device.
CPU benchmarks appear to be fine. GPU benchmarks are currently far worse than expected (but was fine before somehow). Disk benchmarks are not that bad.
What can I do to improve the situation? Thank you for any assistance you can provide!
Host hardware
- Motherboard: ASUS Rampage V Extreme (X99)
- CPU: Intel i7-5960X
- RAM: 32 GB, 2133 MHz, CL15
- Storage:
- Samsung 970 EVO (1 TB, NVMe SSD, stores Proxmox and VMs)
- Samsung 850 EVO (1 TB)
- Samsung 840 PRO (512 GB)
- Kingston SUV400S (240 GB)
- OCZ Vertex 3 (120 GB)
- GPU:
- Nvidia GT 710 (used by host)
- Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti (used by Windows VM)
- AMD Radeon HD 7970 (used by other VM)
- Nvidia GT 710 (used by host)
- USB devices:
- Front panel (monitoring)
- DAC/amp
- USB hub
- Mouse
- Keyboard
- Webcam
- Front panel (monitoring)
Guest drivers
- VirtIO 0.1.141
- Nvidia graphics 416.34
VM config
Code:
bios: ovmf
boot: cdn
bootdisk: virtio0
cores: 16
cpu: host
hostpci0: 02:00,pcie=1,x-vga=on
hostpci1: 00:14,pcie=1
machine: q35
memory: 22528
name: windows
net0: virtio=7E:F2:A9:C2:BA:5D,bridge=vmbr0
numa: 0
ostype: win10
sata0: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Samsung_SSD_850_EVO_1TB_S21DNSAG226256L,cache=none,size=976762584K
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=c9e64dd9-67cf-4633-a2af-38c1caebe729
sockets: 1
tablet: 0
vga: std
virtio0: local-lvm:vm-101-disk-1,cache=none,size=128G
Code:
# lspci -nn | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK208 [GeForce GT 710B] [10de:128b] (rev a1)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:1b06] (rev a1)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti XT [Radeon HD 7970/8970 OEM / R9 280X] [1002:6798]
Code:
# lspci -nn | grep USB
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation C610/X99 series chipset USB xHCI Host Controller [8086:8d31] (rev 05)
00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation C610/X99 series chipset USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:8d2d] (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation C610/X99 series chipset USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:8d26] (rev 05)
09:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042A USB 3.0 Host Controller [1b21:1142]Benchmark results
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
Code:
| | Read [MB/s] | Write [MB/s] |
| ---------- | ----------- | ------------ |
| Seq Q32T1 | 3622.6 | 1480.1 |
| 4KiB Q8T8 | 511.6 | 523.6 |
| 4KiB Q32T1 | 211.2 | 196.1 |
| 4KiB Q1T1 | 27.87 | 50.13 |CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 850 SSD):
Code:
| | Read [MB/s] | Write [MB/s] |
| ---------- | ----------- | ------------ |
| Seq Q32T1 | 555.0 | 530.7 |
| 4KiB Q8T8 | 105.0 | 107.2 |
| 4KiB Q32T1 | 70.58 | 69.09 |
| 4KiB Q1T1 | 19.26 | 24.52 |Geekbench (CPU):
Code:
| Single-Core Score | Multi-Core Score |
| ----------------- | ---------------- |
| 4171 | 25343 |Geekbench (Compute):
Code:
| OpenCL Score |
| ------------ |
| 90890 |Somehow the compute benchmark is much worse than what I got before, but I do not see how it can make a difference regarding the mentioned issue:
Code:
| OpenCL Score |
| ------------ |
| 210601 |Update: After uninstalling the HD 7970 graphics card, the GPU benchmark is somehow back to normal. Made no difference to the disk benchmark.
Update: Disabled memory ballooning and Intel SpeedStep in BIOS. No difference.
Changing disk cache from "No cache" to "Write back (unsafe)" made a difference.
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
Code:
| | Read [MB/s] | Write [MB/s] |
| ---------- | ----------- | ------------ |
| Seq Q32T1 | 5359.0 | 5054.9 |
| 4KiB Q8T8 | 721.0 | 629.6 |
| 4KiB Q32T1 | 229.7 | 207.8 |
| 4KiB Q1T1 | 64.66 | 61.88 |The "4KiB Q8T8" test is still making the system much less responsive but the improvement is huge. Instead of freezing for several seconds at a time, there are now a few updates per second. The display is no longer losing signal.
Update: Disabled Game bar. Downgraded display driver from 416.34 to 399.07 (one I know works well). One thing I notice is that games perform much better after a reboot this time. Even Battlefield 1 gets more than 100 fps on ultra settings (AA disabled) and 1440p.
Update: Enabling "IO thread" on the VMs main disk also made a difference. The freezing during benchmarking is now completely eliminated!
CrystalDiskMark (Samsung 970 SSD):
Code:
| | Read [MB/s] | Write [MB/s] |
| ---------- | ----------- | ------------ |
| Seq Q32T1 | 5843.8 | 1353.6 |
| 4KiB Q8T8 | 683.6 | 622.5 |
| 4KiB Q32T1 | 238.8 | 218.3 |
| 4KiB Q1T1 | 70.81 | 67.22 |
Last edited: