High CPU consumption on idling Win XP.

F

FlyingRat

Bit poster
Hi!

According to the activity monitor, Parallel Desktop continuously consumes about 15% of my Macbook. This is regardless that WinXP Pro is close to 100% idle. Is there a way to trace what is going and find the source of this activity?
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Regards, Lars.



Specs:
======================================
Parallel Desktop, Build 3188

HW: Macbook MA700 2 Ghz, 13, 2GB RAM

Systemversion: Mac OS X 10.4.9 (8P2137)
Kernel-version: Darwin 8.9.1

Maskinens namn: Mac
Datormodell: MacBook2,1
Processornamn: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processorhastighet: 2 GHz
Antal processorer: 1
Totalt antal krnor: 2
L2-cache (per processor): 4 MB
Minne: 2 GB
Busshastighet: 667 MHz
Boot ROM-version: MB21.00A5.B00
SMC-version: 1.13f3
 
I'm experiencing a similar behaviour. Sometimes CPU consumption goes up as much as 104% constantly on my MBP causing the fan to buzz. Software operates fine, however.

Only workaround is to restart the instance (which, for the record, I hate to do).

I'm using 3170.
 
It is probably not a valid assumption to think there is a linear relationship between Parallels resource usage and Windows usage. Windows gets to sleep, for example, but Parallels has to continuously provide resources such as time services, keyboard, mouse, USB, disk, network, cpu, memory, etc. If Windows decides to index the disk, or if auto-connect is on for USB then Parallels has be available. You don't want Parallels to have to wake up because Windows needs some resource - it would be slow. This is a simple view of things but hopefully represents a bit of why Parallels is busy even when Windows is not.
 
15% is actually close to as good as it gets with Parallels in it's current iteration. As dkp indicates it will always be somewhat more the 0 even with XP idle. However, there is still room for tuning. It seems something is not quite optimized yet. I would expect final versions in the 4-8% range sometime in the future, based on my own dev experience with similar things.

For now consider yourself fortunate.

angelday - 100% utilization is often cause by enabling USB support when it's not in use. Try that. Also, I've noticed that on new VM installs of XP, CPU can easily jump above 100% as XP downloads it's oodles of necessary service packs. I find that on fresh VMs it's best just to wait it out and let it do it's thing. Eventually, after seemingly 20 reboots of the VM, it will be all patched up and quite consuming so many resources. Not sure if this is what you're experiencing, but maybe it will help.
 
There's another thing that can be done, too. Windows as a VM does some things that are more appropriate in stand-alone mode. A lot of services can be shut down as they're not needed or fluff. Here's a web page that describes rather clearly if not garishly what can be done to minimize Windows' busy work:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
 
Turn off sound emulation. With it on in idle for me Parallels uses about 20%. With it off in idle, Parallels uses about 9-10%.
 
akac said:
Turn off sound emulation. With it on in idle for me Parallels uses about 20%. With it off in idle, Parallels uses about 9-10%.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I've disabled USB and Audio as I don't use them. CPU usage when XP is idle has gone form 15% to 7-8% Much better.

And when paused, is only using 1-3% (as opposed to 7-8% before).

Cheers

Russell
 
Sorry to ask, but how do I turn off the USB? I couldn't find any preference.

I could reproduce the speedup: when I drag and drop an Excel file from my Mac to the Excel window directly, it wouldn't load sometimes causing the 100% CPU consumption.

I'm using 3170.
 
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