High CPU in build 3188

markaddleman · Mar 25, 2007

I've read a few threads regarding high CPU in previous builds. It's unclear to me whether it's been resolved in build 3188, but I'm definitely experiencing it. According to top, Parallels consumes no less than 50% CPU and often as high as 100%+.

I've tried turning off Windows Sharing but to no avail. Any suggestions?

waterhead37 · Mar 25, 2007

Check to be sure that Windows is not in the middle of downloading some update or other - there seem to be quite a few at the moment. Ditto any Anti virus software. Many times AV software and anti-spyware stuff start scanning the disk as soon as the VM is booted and that can take ages depending on the size of your VM.

You could also turn off indexing. In XP and prior builds it is pretty useless anyway.

ricardo · Mar 25, 2007

markaddleman said:
I've read a few threads regarding high CPU in previous builds. It's unclear to me whether it's been resolved in build 3188, but I'm definitely experiencing it. According to top, Parallels consumes no less than 50% CPU and often as high as 100%+.

I've tried turning off Windows Sharing but to no avail. Any suggestions?

Are you using Skype, by any chance? I've found that sends my CPU usage from 20% to 60%, even if Windows is only using about 1% CPU. Do you have USB enabled? Some people have reported that can cause serious processor usage increase.

markaddleman · Mar 25, 2007

waterhead37 said:
Check to be sure that Windows is not in the middle of downloading some update or other - there seem to be quite a few at the moment. Ditto any Anti virus software. Many times AV software and anti-spyware stuff start scanning the disk as soon as the VM is booted and that can take ages depending on the size of your VM.

You could also turn off indexing. In XP and prior builds it is pretty useless anyway.

I should have mentioned that the Windows Task Manager reports near zero CPU usage. This leads me to believe the CPU consumption is coming from Parallels itself.

markaddleman · Mar 25, 2007

ricardo said:
Are you using Skype, by any chance? I've found that sends my CPU usage from 20% to 60%, even if Windows is only using about 1% CPU. Do you have USB enabled? Some people have reported that can cause serious processor usage increase.

No Skype. I pretty much only use Parallels for Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Music. I've tried turning both of those off. That doesn't solve the problem.

I also tried disabling USB support, but no dice with that, either.

It's very typical for the Windows Task Manager to report 90%+ idle, but top shows Parallels using 50%+ cpu. Very odd...

David5000 · Mar 25, 2007

waterhead37 said:
You could also turn off indexing. In XP and prior builds it is pretty useless anyway.

By indexing, do you mean something in Windows? Where do you turn it off? (I'm using XP Pro.)

Also, could you explain a little more why it is useless?

Thank you,

David

ricardo · Mar 25, 2007

Something else you may want to try is avoiding Coherence, if you're using it, and disabling support altogether.

markaddleman said:
It's very typical for the Windows Task Manager to report 90%+ idle, but top shows Parallels using 50%+ cpu. Very odd...

I believe you - you'll find plenty of similar stories here on the forums. Everybody has a difference cause, but it seems USB is one of the most common suspects. Also, for those that manage to fix the problem, real CPU usage drops to a "mere" 15-20% when windows is 97%+ idle. I haven't managed to get it under 40% when using a Linux virtual os.

Constable_Odo1 · Mar 26, 2007

I'm using a MacBook Pro 2.33 C2D, 10.4.9 and Parallels 3188 running Windows XP Pro. Windows XP idles using from 13 to 18 percent of the processors. When Internet Explorer is running the processors bounce around 18 to 30 percent depending upon the amount of Flash graphics displayed on the page. This is when Parallels is running Full Screen view.

When I quit Parallels the MBP processors run at 1 percent (all based on MenuMeters reading).

angelday · Mar 26, 2007

Hi,

I'm running 3188 on a MBP. I don't have USB of any kind turned on. I'm experiencing this behaviour only when I drag and drop an Excel file from my Mac desktop into Excel directly. I could work this around by dragging the file first to the XP desktop, then open - save and move the file back, but it would have been such an annoyance.

On the next occurence, I will file a report.

ricardo · Mar 26, 2007

angelday said:
Hi,

I'm running 3188 on a MBP. I don't have USB of any kind turned on. I'm experiencing this behaviour only when I drag and drop an Excel file from my Mac desktop into Excel directly. I could work this around by dragging the file first to the XP desktop, then open - save and move the file back, but it would have been such an annoyance.

On the next occurence, I will file a report.

On another thread, someone reported that Coherence made significantly increased processor usage. Is this a Coherence feature?

angelday · Mar 26, 2007

No, I have never used coherence.

Parabola · Apr 2, 2007

MActivity Monitor shows CPU at about 80-130% for Parallels (3188), but it subsides after "applying computer settings" (corp Win client mgmt) completes at login window. Windows Task Mgr jumps up around now and then, but it's not high for too loing.

I have no Skype, but have USB & Coherence enabled and use Symantec AV Corp Ed.

MBP 2.16 GHz/2GB (768MB for VM)/100GB 7200 RPM (20GB for VM)/10.4.9

rhind · Apr 2, 2007

Low usage for me.

On both a 2.33GHz iMac C2D and 2.33GHz MacBook Pro C2D, my XP installation idles at 7-8% on both. It was more like 15-18% before I disabled sound so that uses quite a bit.

I don't use any USB devices on it, and only tend to run Visual Studio 2005 and sometimes firefox/IE.

Cheers

Russell