NEED FIX - Confirmed Issue with Paralles (Any Version) and Dual ATI Video Cards

NEED FIX - Confirmed Issue with Parallels (Any Version) and Dual ATI Video Cards

Before you post to this thread with your comments please confirm your machine specs are similar to the below and you have at least 2 ATI video cards installed in your system.

Hardware:

Mac Pro Quad 3Ghz
2 ATI Radeon X1900 XT Video Cards
3 GB RAM (6 512MB DIMMS, all OEM)
2 500 GB SATA stripped in RAID 0
1 Apple 30" Cinema Dispay - 2560x1600
2 Dell 24" Wide Aspect Ratio Displays - 1920x1200

Software:

OS X Tiger 10.4.8 w/ Xcode tools installed
Parallels 1970 through 3170 tested - Currently 3170 installed
Virtual HDD is a clean Windows XP Pro install

I can start the VM, login and work, but can expect 5-10 crashes per day. I experience the following crashes.

• Grey KP - screen fills grey with foreign text telling you to reboot
  [*]Freeze - Both VM and OS X freeze, force quit will not help, must manually power off and on

These crashes only occur when Paralles is running.

Removing the second video card resolves the issue. I have had both video cards replaced with the same results. For stabilitiy sake I only have one ATI video card installed with the Apple 30 and a Dell 24.

Another way to bypass the issue is to use the Xcode Processor tool and disable 3 of the 4 CPU cores. By doing this I can have both video adapters plugged in and all 3 displays running.

I say this is a confirmed issue because I have made contact with one other Beta tester that has a similar setup (dual ATI video cards) and is having the exact same issues. I will ask him to post his issues as well.

Hopefully this thread will find other Parallels users out there that are using multiple ATI video cards and having the same issues.

Parallels Support can you please address this in your next build??

Thanks,
Alex

 

I get almost identical crashes on almost identical hardware

I have almost exactly the same hardware setp, and I have experienced painfully similar crashes with every version of Parallels released for testing (or as final) since I began using it last Fall.

The only thing which has allowed me to run with any stability is to remove one of the ATI cards and run with two monitors instead of three. Otherwise it is virtually certain that Parallels will cause the OSX WindowServer process to go belly-up and require a hard reset to get the machine running again.

After Parallels crashes WindowServer it is still possible to ssh into the machine, so this may be an opportunity for a Parallels developer to connect and do a post-mortem analysis. I'd be willing to do anything reasonably within my power to help the Parallels team solve this.

Rick

 

I just posted a thread about Parallels hammering WindowServer:

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=10467

It's possible that WindowServer interaction is the symptom of your problems; by the sounds of things, you've got a very large monitor setup. If you've got the Xcode Developer Tools installed, would you mind running (1) Activity Monitor to check the WindowServer process size, and (2) Quartz Debug from the Developer Tools and check its Window List?