Parallels 4.0: Horrible performance after resume

M

mpemburn

Member
Hi,

I've been using Parallels since version 2.x (about two years) and, to be fair, the general trend in the user experience has been good over that time. However, since upgrading to 4.0 a few months ago, I've been frustrated by a severe degradation in Windows performance when I Resume a VM. This was never a problem under 3.0. The problem occurs both in the VM that I upgraded from the 3.0 version and one that I created from scratch a short time ago. The performance on the Mac side does not degrade appreciably when I'm experiencing these VM problems. Here are the details:

MacBook 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo (pre-Penryn)
3 GB 667 MHz RAM
160 GB HD (with 35 GB free)
OS X 10.5.7

Parallels 4.0 Build 4.0.3844

Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 (with Automatic Updates on)
768 MB RAM
124 GB HD (with 116 GB free)
AVG Free anti-virus

I use this VM primarily for software development (Java using Eclipse and browsers for web-based apps) and to support clients who use Windows.

Thanks in advance,

Mark
 
The best workaround is to simply shut down the VM when ending a session.
From what I've seen, that is the single most YMMV prone feature in Parallels.
 
Yes, that's what I'm doing but it's not what I'd consider to be an acceptable solution. As I say, this used to work just fine under version 3.x.

Mark
 
mpemburn said:
Hi,

I've been using Parallels since version 2.x (about two years) and, to be fair, the general trend in the user experience has been good over that time. However, since upgrading to 4.0 a few months ago, I've been frustrated by a severe degradation in Windows performance when I Resume a VM. This was never a problem under 3.0. The problem occurs both in the VM that I upgraded from the 3.0 version and one that I created from scratch a short time ago. The performance on the Mac side does not degrade appreciably when I'm experiencing these VM problems. Here are the details:

MacBook 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo (pre-Penryn)
3 GB 667 MHz RAM
160 GB HD (with 35 GB free)
OS X 10.5.7

Parallels 4.0 Build 4.0.3844

Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 (with Automatic Updates on)
768 MB RAM
124 GB HD (with 116 GB free)
AVG Free anti-virus

I use this VM primarily for software development (Java using Eclipse and browsers for web-based apps) and to support clients who use Windows.

Thanks in advance,

Mark
Click to expand...

See http://kb.parallels.com/de/5859
 
Problem solved

I deinstalled G-Data-Anti-Virus and Windows was as fast as ever. I had to buy the anti-virus-program for one more year, so I suspect that it slowed down the performance to cause the impresssion that some virus was responsible for this effect. Maybe I´m wrong, but it is strange that the bad performance occured only a short time after the license ran out. I´ve found the hint to deinstall anti-virus programs somewhere in Parallels help world.
Thanks
Uli
 
Thanks for your replies.

Although I'm typically more measured and try one thing at a time before declaring the cure, I took both suggestions and they seem to've made the difference -- I can now resume from a suspended state and have a usable VM within a minute or so.

Ulrich's link is to a site in German but I was able to find other references to this method (though I don't have time to explain why it works at the moment, it does work). In essence:

1. Open a DOS window (Start/Run/ type "cmd.exe" and hit Enter/Return)

2. Type: start /wait Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

It runs for a while and then comes back to the DOS prompt.

Second, I uninstalled AVG Free anti-virus. Because I've been wanting to try it, I installed the Panda "Cloud" anti-virus. So far, the performance is much improved, even while the anti-virus is scanning.

-- Mark
 
I had the same problem, i was using a complex antiviru who took so many resources. After i replaced that all worked very well
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top