Memory reading on windows VM

[noak]

My windows10 VM shows a total memory used of about 7GB out of 8 on the proxmox GUI.

But when I check the windows vm task manager it shows 2-3GB used out of 8.

Does anyone know why there might be a discrepancy?

VM Specs:
Memory 8GiB
Processors: 2 (1 socket, 2 cores)
Hard Disk (ide0) - local-lvm:vm-103-disk-1,size=100G
Network Device (net0) virtio

Host Specs:
32 GB RAM
Latest proxmox software updated and rebooted
1TB HDD (WD Black)
CPU(s): 8 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1241 v3 @ 3.50GHz (1 Socket)
Kernel Version: Linux 4.13.16-2-pve #1 SMP PVE 4.13.16-47 (Mon, 9 Apr 2018 09:58:12 +0200)
PVE Manager Version: pve-manager/5.1-51/96be5354


The total VMs I am running on this host are 4 windows VMs (1 win7, 3 win10). All 4 appear to be reporting similar memory readings in their individual graphs on the GUI.

 

[mbaldini]

You should install the Virtio Balloon driver and the Virtio Balloon service in the Windows guests

 

[noak]

I may have done this (at least for the network drivers) but I'll double check the memory drivers now.

Should I check the box for Ballooning when allocating memory to the VM?

 

[mbaldini]

I may have done this (at least for the network drivers) but I'll double check the memory drivers now.

You must install the service too, in the Virtion Balloon folder you should run blnsrv -i , it's better to move the balloon folder in a folder on the guest hard disk (if you use it from virtual CD / ISO)

IShould I check the box for Ballooning when allocating memory to the VM?

Yes

 

[dailyxe]

You should install the Virtio Balloon driver and the Virtio Balloon service in the Windows guests

I agree with you

 

[noak]

Thanks for the help so far.

When I browse to Device Manager > system devices I do not see a RAM device installed. So I cant find which device I need to update the driver for.

I also tried running devcon and manually installing the driver (per README) but getting an error. And the device shows up as "unknown".

I was able to get the balloon service running but I fear without the driver showing up in the device manager its not really there.... any thoughts?




EDIT: Stupid mistake. I did not enable Ballooning on the proxmox GUI. Once I did that and restarted the guest now the VirtIO Balloon Driver shows up in device manager.

 

[mbaldini]

Have you enabled balloning device in the VM config? If you have it disabled, you must shutdown the VM (if it's windows 8 or 10 use shutdown -s -t 0), enable ballooning device in the config and then restart the VM, so you should find the device in the device manager
The device is called VirtIO Balloon Driver after the driver is installed:

 

[noak]

I was able to get the virtio Balloon driver working and also setup the virtio disk driver. But first I had to follow this guide to change my disk type: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Paravirtualized_Block_Drivers_for_Windows#Adding_a_temporary_drive

I did this for all my windows VMs and now everything seems to be running much smoother. Thanks for the help.

 

[limxongphim]

I have the same question with you