High CPU usage

E

esgargs

Member
I am running Windows XP Pro in Parallels right now, and even though the Windows taskbar says that my CPU utilization is close to 0%, Parallels is consuming about 50% CPU at the moment. This is the latest version of Parallels that just came out, and Coherence is on.

Any advice/help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
No USB devices here

Andrew,

I do not have any USB devices (in fact, I've disabled a USB to be safe), and the minimal CPU, with WinXP completely idle is at 17-20%. Running anything within XP (even when XP's CPU remaining at 0) takes the MacOS CPU to 40-50%.

At this point, I'd be happy to downgrade to the previous version -- however:
a) is it still possible to download 2.5
b) will virtual drives used by 3.0 be compatible with 2.5
c) if the answer is "no" for (b), can you either fix the bug, or come up with a utility that will achieve this? it'd really suck, if after paying for 2.5 and upgrade to 3.0 we'd have to spend $$$ for VMWare Fusion

Thanks,
Alex
 
I am in the same boat. I just bought Parallels, and the fact that it takes up 50% of the CPU resources without even doing anything makes me very uncomfortable.

I don't have any USB devices plugged in. In fact, if I do plug in my iPhone while Parallels is running, the CPU usage goes upto 110% or so. This sounds like a bug to me.

Any solutions?
 
agranovsky,

Thanks for the shot. Can you please locate exactly the process in Windows that causes such huge CPU usage in Mac? It could be the process in Windows that consumes even 0% CPU, but still it can cause PD itself consume 10-20%. The process will be like this:
1. Exit some process in Windows.
2. Check PD CPU usage. If CPU usage is still the same, exit the next process. And so on.

Finally you will have one (maybe two) process names. Having them located will greatly help us to investigate the issue and fix it in the next update.

You should start from the processes that you expect could work in 16-bit mode.

Thank you in advance. We're looking forward to your results.
 
Tim,

When I log into Windows, without any non-standard services installed, and with some of the standard services removed, Parallels clocks at 17-20%. I could try stopping/disabling services but this is beyond the point. I think 2.5 was using 4-7% in this scenario.

One program that I *know* causes the jump from 20% to 50% is a particular app we use in development. The app runs event-based multimedia timer (timeSetEvent() API), firing every 5ms or so, does pretty much nothing on timer when idle (which is the case of 50%), and goes back to sleep.

Please note, that the same app was used under 2.5 and didn't cause the high CPU.

I could look at other apps which increase CPU consumption, if you'd like.

Thanks,
Alex
 
Andrew @ Parallels said:
Do you have any USB devices attached to Parallels? Detaching all devices will greatly reduce CPU usage.
Click to expand...
Can you tell us which kinds of USB devices "greatly" reduce CPU usage? Or is it all of them?

I ask because I have a USB hub with a wireless mouse receiver, an ethernet dongle (only used to pass the mac address to licensing software), and 12GB SmartDisk, and these don't seem to effect it at all (had almost the same on another MBP with no apparent effect either).

Also, what app are folks using when concluding that PD had X% utilization, etc?
 
agranovsky,

> I could look at other apps which increase CPU consumption, if you'd like.

That will be great! We constantly evaluate quite a few apps, but your additions and thoughts will be very much appreciated.

ccparallels,

Andrew means that having USB device connected to Parallels Desktop and, what's more important, being utilized at this time, increases CPU usage. Having USB device just connected to Mac and not being utilized within Parallels Desktop does not increase the CPU usage at all.

To check PD CPU usage, open Applications->Utilities->Active Monitor. CPU usage will be shown next to Parallels Desktop process.
 
Tim Surgent said:
agranovsky,

Having USB device just connected to Mac and not being utilized within Parallels Desktop does not increase the CPU usage at all.
Click to expand...

I'll recheck when I get home, but I am pretty sure that just plugging in my iPhone surged the CPU utilization, even though I was only using it with the Mac version of iTunes. All Parallels did was display a dialog box asking me if I wanted to use the USB device with Windows.
 
Tim Surgent said:
agranovsky,

Thanks for the shot. Can you please locate exactly the process in Windows that causes such huge CPU usage in Mac? It could be the process in Windows that consumes even 0% CPU, but still it can cause PD itself consume 10-20%. The process will be like this:
1. Exit some process in Windows.
2. Check PD CPU usage. If CPU usage is still the same, exit the next process. And so on.

Finally you will have one (maybe two) process names. Having them located will greatly help us to investigate the issue and fix it in the next update.

You should start from the processes that you expect could work in 16-bit mode.

Thank you in advance. We're looking forward to your results.
Click to expand...
Hello!

On my MacBook when I close "iTunesHelper.exe" CPU usage drops from 49% to 15-16%...

I have iTunes 7.3.1.3.
 
dimaulupov said:
Hello!

On my MacBook when I close "iTunesHelper.exe" CPU usage drops from 49% to 15-16%...

I have iTunes 7.3.1.3.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Do you have your iPod or iPhone connected to the VM when you see 49% CPU usage?
 
Tim,

Frankly, if I was to deal with this problem, I'd look at the bare WinXP system rather than any app in particular. E.g., I'd validate the fact that 2.5 used to consume 4-7% CPU while running idle, bare WinXP installation, 3.0 is consuming 16-20% CPU -- and then, once this fact is established, I'd profile to find out what causes the difference.

I'm pretty sure that once you locate the cause of increase on idle Guest OS, you'd resolve the issue for all the apps as well.

Good luck,
Alex

P.S. Just to be sure we're testing on the same hardware, I'm running MacBookPro 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OSX 10.4.9, 4GB RAM. Other people here have reported the same issue with older (3GB max) MacBookPros.
 
Tim Surgent said:
Thanks. Do you have your iPod or iPhone connected to the VM when you see 49% CPU usage?
Click to expand...

No.

No iPod and no iPhone (:( I am in Russia, no iPhone at all) connected.
And to deal with CPU usage I have already disabled USB ports (that didn't help though).
 
Steps to reproduce problem

You can easily reproduce that situation.

1) Install fresh WinXP SP2. (May be it is important to apply all latest updates to windows, my PD started to "misbehave" when I applied all updates, and updated iTunes).
2) Install iTunes 7.3.1.3.
3) PD constantly uses 49% CPU (even no restart necessary).

To revert to 16% CPU usage you just have to kill iTunesHelper.exe after each windows start.
And I've noticed that when no iTunesHelper.exe present when iTunes started PD uses 49% of CPU too.
 
I connect one (1) USB device (my Treo 700wx to sync with Outlook) and no other apps running except ActiveSync 4.5 and system us idle and CPU usage stays sustained at 60% +. Also I do not have iTunes installed on XP Pro SP2. I've disabled all USB until this gets resolved.
 
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