AusRob
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Virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 on VMware ESXI 5.1 crashes consisntantly
Hi all,
I recently build a new virtual machine to use as a terminal server, (for the accountancy firm). Everything seemed to work perfectly till I deployed it. It crashed as soon as a few users logged in and started working. When I asked, most of the users couldn't tell me what they were doing. But those who could said they were typing in Word, Excel or Outlook. One was using a superannuation program.
Checking the logs, and from what I've seen when I've been able to catch the console during a crash, it's always the same stop error with the same reference to Win32k.sys. Unfortunately, that appears to be a generic "oops, something broke".
I've spent 5 nights working till after midnight trying to figure out what's happening. So far I have no real clues. And I feel I'm missing something obvious.
So, can anyone suggest things to look at please? Hopefully it's something really stupid I've missed, and I can fix it quickly. But I'm willing to check anything you guys suggest.
Rob.
I recently build a new virtual machine to use as a terminal server, (for the accountancy firm). Everything seemed to work perfectly till I deployed it. It crashed as soon as a few users logged in and started working. When I asked, most of the users couldn't tell me what they were doing. But those who could said they were typing in Word, Excel or Outlook. One was using a superannuation program.
Checking the logs, and from what I've seen when I've been able to catch the console during a crash, it's always the same stop error with the same reference to Win32k.sys. Unfortunately, that appears to be a generic "oops, something broke".
I've spent 5 nights working till after midnight trying to figure out what's happening. So far I have no real clues. And I feel I'm missing something obvious.
So, can anyone suggest things to look at please? Hopefully it's something really stupid I've missed, and I can fix it quickly. But I'm willing to check anything you guys suggest.
Rob.
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Maybe try reinstalling vmware tools
ASKER
OK, it was configured for Kernel dump, so I've changed that. I will get some users to log in and see if I can get it to crash again, (it never crashes for me).
The server is an IBM x3400 M2, single Quad Core Xeon E5520, 48 GB RAM, IBM 8 port MegaRAID card with BBU, 6 x 300GB SAS drives in two RAID 5 arrays, and one 80GB SATA drive that the ESXI boots from.
The VMware server has two virtual servers;
An SBS 2008 that is running without error, using 24GB RAM and one of the RAID 5 arrays with 4 VDs, (150GB system, 80GB Exchange, 200GB Data & 115GB User Data, and a 40GB WSUS VD on the other RAID 5 array).
The other is the new WIndows 2008 R2 VM that we are discussing. Using 22GB ram, and 2 x 200GB VDs, (system and data).
By the way, I already tried removing and reloading VMtools.
The server is an IBM x3400 M2, single Quad Core Xeon E5520, 48 GB RAM, IBM 8 port MegaRAID card with BBU, 6 x 300GB SAS drives in two RAID 5 arrays, and one 80GB SATA drive that the ESXI boots from.
The VMware server has two virtual servers;
An SBS 2008 that is running without error, using 24GB RAM and one of the RAID 5 arrays with 4 VDs, (150GB system, 80GB Exchange, 200GB Data & 115GB User Data, and a 40GB WSUS VD on the other RAID 5 array).
The other is the new WIndows 2008 R2 VM that we are discussing. Using 22GB ram, and 2 x 200GB VDs, (system and data).
By the way, I already tried removing and reloading VMtools.
I don't think this is the issue but you're using 46gb Ram over the 2 vms leaving 2gb for the the hypervisor. I'm pretty sure the memory overhead for those VM's will be more than 2gb.
Out of interest why have you allocated so much ram?
Out of interest why have you allocated so much ram?
ASKER
I got the 6 x 8GB RAM sticks pretty cheap, (cheaper than I saw 3 x 8GB sticks elsewhere). SO I upgraded from the existing 12GB for the base server because EVERYTHING was bog slow. I allocated that much RAM to the SBS because they have a fairly hefty Exchange database at the moment, (I'm working on email archiving but one thing at a time), as well as just starting to use Sharepoint. They also use the SBS as the file/database server for MYOB and Quickbooks.
I allocated 22GBG for the Terminal Server because both Quickbooks and MYOB recommended as much RAM as possible for that configuration, both internal and external users accessing multiple MYOB and Quickbooks files all at the same time. This is an accountancy firm, and has 10 internal users plus 11 external hosted clients.
At the moment vSphere reports a memory overhead of 200MB for the SBS and 190MB for the TS. It reports only 46GB of the 48GB in use. I'm fairly new to ESXI, but I presume this means I have the settings pretty close to what they need to be? It won't be hard to change it if needed, ( I can edit the settings and restart both overnight).
For the record, it was originally a Cirtrix Xen server. Both I and the other guy now looking after it, and the previous IT company we use for fallback support, are less familiar with Xen than VMware though, so I did a full image backup and restored to VMware VMs. I'm far more familiar with Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V, but was told it has far more overhead than VMware, Plus Hyper-V wont allow me to use a USB drive for SBS backup, so went with the consensus.
Rob.
I allocated 22GBG for the Terminal Server because both Quickbooks and MYOB recommended as much RAM as possible for that configuration, both internal and external users accessing multiple MYOB and Quickbooks files all at the same time. This is an accountancy firm, and has 10 internal users plus 11 external hosted clients.
At the moment vSphere reports a memory overhead of 200MB for the SBS and 190MB for the TS. It reports only 46GB of the 48GB in use. I'm fairly new to ESXI, but I presume this means I have the settings pretty close to what they need to be? It won't be hard to change it if needed, ( I can edit the settings and restart both overnight).
For the record, it was originally a Cirtrix Xen server. Both I and the other guy now looking after it, and the previous IT company we use for fallback support, are less familiar with Xen than VMware though, so I did a full image backup and restored to VMware VMs. I'm far more familiar with Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V, but was told it has far more overhead than VMware, Plus Hyper-V wont allow me to use a USB drive for SBS backup, so went with the consensus.
Rob.
ASKER
"Touch wood", everything seems fine now. It hasn't crashed for 4 days. The frustrating thing is I don't know what I did to fix it. But as long as it stays working, I don't care. Thanks for the suggestions guys.
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Problem was caused by hardware fault that was masked by host of virtual machine, RAM ECC errors not logged), as well as RAID array issues. Solved by IBM under warranty.
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