Sorry for a bit of a long intro, but I know questions will probably be asked, so... I have a Win 10 virtual (VMWare) PC that seemingly since a major Windows update which required a reboot on 9/27, has been found each morning to be so unresponsive that it has to be power cycled. It shouldn't be doing much of anything when it bogs down - just running a couple of brief tasks every few minutes that pull info from a database on another server. These tasks run round the clock normally without issue, and had been doing so for months. Nobody logs into the PC except for an outside contractor occasionally to work on the scheduled tasks and related matters. It's not anyone's daily-use PC.

Windows is completely up to date now, and auto update is now turned off, but that didn't solve the problem. Antivirus has been disabled, and no backups are schedule.

On the VMware host, the VM PC shows to be at 100% CPU utilization when the problem is happening. Upon power cycle, so far it's operated fine until the next morning.

I noticed in the PC's task manager it shows the following:



Is that amount of CPU time for Desktop Window Manager over 4 days a concern for a PC that normally has nobody logged in? I found a number of cases online where people notice high CPU utilization by DWM, but when I log in and view it live, it's in the 0-3% CPU range in the Processes tab of taskmgr.

I would use Avast Cleanup:

https://bestantiviruspro.org/b...st-cleanup-worth-it/

I’m interested in the responses you get too. But CPU time doesn’t translate to CPU load I don’t think. So my guess is that the CPU load may have been minor. Maybe running a VM Requires a shutdown after each use whereas just running Windows on bare metal doesn’t.

Why are you running a VM? Is it running on Linux in Virtual Box, for instance? Or VMWare I see.

OK- do you have the latest vmware tools on the guest? I would even consider reinstalling wmware tools, as there may be something with that Windows update that is impacting tools, which then has a knock-on effect.

WDM, are there services running under a user account?

Dan

What is your services log story?

Maybe you can detect some mischief or misbehaviour there before the hangs/reboots.

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How does Avast differ from things like SuperAntiSpyware, CCleaner, and MalwareBytes with regard to cleaning up a PC’s system and improving response?

quote:

Originally posted by rusbro:
On the VMware host, the VM PC shows to be at 100% CPU utilization when the problem is happening. Upon power cycle, so far it's operated fine until the next morning.

You need to look at the processes tab (on the vm guest), and sort by CPU use, and show us what is using all of the CPU cycles.

Also - what kind of vmware setup? How many physical cpu's on the host, vs vcpu's used by the guest. How many other guests, etc.

Also what kind of theme/wallpaper is this desktop OS vm running?

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
How does Avast differ from things like SuperAntiSpyware, CCleaner, and MalwareBytes with regard to cleaning up a PC’s system and improving response?

Avast is mostly interested in virus infections, online privacy while browsing and browser hijackingand infections. Nowadays, the want to cover a wide spectrum of things. I trust my computers to the free version, can' t tell how good or bad the full version is. Pleased with free avast as antivirus, i remove the safe browser ASAP

I regularly run SA, my main line of defense against bad stuff collected while surfing the Net. It works marvels on the cookies universe. Normally and regularly, i use the quick scan. MB is pretty much the same, it's my second opinion if and when I feel like needing one.

Avast and SA can play well together.


Ccleaner serves a different purpose. Mainly use it to get rid of useless temp files left behind.
Also trust the registry cleanup and tun it systematically after uninstalling a program and rebooting the machine. Then run the registry cleaner, backup before making changes and fillow CC recommendations. No problems after decades of using it.
CC can also unistall programs when the control panel applet fails and can overwrite your empty space if you want to preserve some privacy. Available space might contain the data previously written to disk and later erased. The data is still there, only the reference to the space previously occupied gets wiped.

Hope ididn't make it more confusing to you.

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I agree it is best to investigate as you are vs a random "scan this" approach.
How is your Hypervisor (host) set up?
Have you applied enough resources to the guest?
What if anything do the events in event viewer (I ❤ event viewer) say?
Could be memory leak in an app or power setting or other configuration change.
Good Luck.

The Cleanup looks at the operation of your computer and is separate from their antivirus program.

Thanks for the suggestions and questions so far. This morning I was looking at the host machine's CPU chart for the vm in question after the contractor had logged off, and saw it had shot up right before or at the time he closed his VPN connection and stayed pegged, so I've relayed questions to him about what he was doing.

I haven't found anything in the Windows event viewer to indicate the cause of the problem.

This weekend, I do plan on upping resources, even though I'm not thinking that's the issue, and re-installing vmware tools.

I'll hold of on saying anything else until I hear back from him. Thanks for the feedback.

Problem solved, sort of.

The major Win 10 update (1903) that automatically installed a few days ago has a flaw that, when a Remote Desktop user disconnects instead of choosing "Sign out" from the Start menu, will cause Desktop Window Manager to peg one core at 100% (on a VM).

https://borncity.com/win/2019/...pu-load-freezes-vms/

This particular VM only had 1 core, so it was toast at that point. I added a core, rolled back the update, disabled auto-update, and now all is well. I did test after adding a core but before rolling back the update, the problem was still present, though the vm wasn't crippled - CPU was holding at about 40% after RDP user disconnect.

I did try re-installing VMWare tools, as suggested here, but that didn't help, unfortunately.

Since this machine has very limited purpose, and no web surfing, I'm not that worried about Windows updates. I can monitor the problem for a resolution from MS, and apply updates once MS addresses the problem.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Computer question for anyone familiar with "CPU time"

It's different than Tulsa Time.