CPU Spikes in a Hyper-V VM
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My new file server in a Hyper-V VM was migrated last weekend. It has been running quite well until today. We are now having CPU Spikes. It looked like it was our Symantec SEP but I killed it and while the CPU settled down, it is still averaging about 40% CPU usage with spikes back up in the 90's. Mostly from Service Host or SYSTEM.
The VM has 8GB of RAM and 2 CPU. With Anti-Virus management killed, it is then just a file server with shadow copies on (only runs twice a day.)
DO I need to tweak my VM settings some? And yes, I know, Symantec is bloated but it is all we have for now and has worked well for us.
Any other suggestions? Management is looking at this closely and wanting to point at virtualization.
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Are you seeing spikes inside the VM or from outside of the VM? Are you seeing performance problems?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Are you seeing spikes inside the VM or from outside of the VM? Are you seeing performance problems?
Within. The Host is pretty normal. This is the task manager before I killed Symantec:
Then Symantec was still running, it was constant 99%. Right now, it just spiked (with no Symantec running)
Not sure if this is just normal spikes with our usage. Didn't have this problem on the physical and under powered SBS 2003 with only 4GB and 32bit.
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This post is deleted! -
And yes...horrid performance problems, especially when it was at 99%. Taking forever for end users to access files on the shared drives.
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Is that a Sybase DB running? That is a lot of CPU there.
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How many vCPU do you have assigned?
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Are you doing full scans or targeted scans? Do you have any files/folders in the exclusion list?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Is that a Sybase DB running? That is a lot of CPU there.
That is the DB for Symantec SEP...again, currently not running...
It just happened again now:
We are running 2 virtual processors.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
Are you doing full scans or targeted scans? Do you have any files/folders in the exclusion list?
Currently, Anti-Virus services are off. Going to check the settings again tonight when I turn it back on after hours...
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Should I give it 4 CPU's? Is that not excessive for just a file server, albeit heavily used one?
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You should be giving less vCPUs, not more.
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@garak0410 said:
Should I give it 4 CPU's? Is that not excessive for just a file server, albeit heavily used one?
Not likely. But it depends on many factors.
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@garak0410 said:
@PSX_Defector said:
You should be giving less vCPUs, not more.
So perhaps try one tonight?
Very un
@garak0410 said:
@PSX_Defector said:
You should be giving less vCPUs, not more.
So perhaps try one tonight?
very unlikely to be the culprit but doesn't hurt to try.
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Weird posting thing there.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
@PSX_Defector said:
You should be giving less vCPUs, not more.
So perhaps try one tonight?
@garak0410 said:
@PSX_Defector said:
You should be giving less vCPUs, not more.
So perhaps try one tonight?
very unlikely to be the culprit but doesn't hurt to try.
Got to try something...because I am taking 1/2 day off tomorrow...LOL. Will try tonight...
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Important to consider that malware is a possibility. Do a scan with some third party scanners to improve confidence. Such a new system, unlikely to be infected but you never know.
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If you bring up performance monitor, what files are being written/read? Even if the disk activity is relatively low, it gives you an idea of what the process is doing by the files it's interacting with.
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It had no malware.
So, powered it off and took away a virtual CPU.
It took forever and a day to boot up and even when I finally got a login screen, it takes forever to get its services started (Welcome, Policy Registration, Local Session Manager takes forever to come up). Then a black screen for a good while and finally the desktop. And waiting and waitng for it to let me input. Server Manager creeps to a start. The right click I did on the task bar so I could get the task manager took over a minute to give me the context menu...finally got task manger up and for sure, back to 99% CPU with Symantec and Service Host taking most of it.
This is terrible It has to be some kind of VM setting wrong. But it wasn't this bad yesterday.
I am about to bring up resource monitor but it is taking forever as well...
