This is happening on HP DL585 G2 (4 x Dual-Core AMD Opteron 8220 SE 2.81 GHz, 64 GB RAM),
with Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64[/b] SP1 host.
An attempt to start any[/i] VM (32 or 64 bit, any OS) consistently crashes the host with bugcheck vmware-vmx.exe in vm86.sys (the details are below.)
The only thing I found that works around the problem is disabling the last CPU using
processor6.use = FALSE
processor7.use = FALSE
in .vmx file. With this everything works fine (so far), including 64 bit guests. Disabling other CPUs instead does not help, as long as one of these two cores is in use, even if it is the only one.
The last entry in the vmware-serverd.log is always 'vmserverdWin32.exe entering main loop'. The VM log file is not created at all.
Any ideas?
Here are the details on the crash dump:
7: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
\* *
\* Bugcheck Analysis *
\* *
*******************************************************************************
Unknown bugcheck code (e0000001)
Unknown bugcheck description
Arguments:
Arg1: fffffad98314ae60
Arg2: fffffad98314e110
Arg3: 0000000000000000
Arg4: 0000000000000000
Debugging Details:
\----
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR: 0xE0000001
PROCESS_NAME: vmware-vmx.exe
CURRENT_IRQL: 1
LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from fffffad98313f17d to fffff8000104ead0
STACK_TEXT:
fffffad9`80b0a828 fffffad9`8313f17d : 00000000`e0000001 fffffad9`8314ae60 fffffad9`8314e110 00000000`00000000 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffffad9`80b0a830 fffffad9`831445b2 : fffffad9`8314ae60 fffffad9`8314b500 00000000`000000c6 00000000`0000009a : vmx86+0x117d
fffffad9`80b0a870 fffffad9`83143226 : fffffad9`ba3e9810 00000000`00000032 00000000`ffffffff 00000000`0107009a : vmx86+0x65b2
fffffad9`80b0a8a0 fffffad9`8314934c : 00000000`00040000 fffffa80`00a9a000 00000000`00000040 fffffad9`ba2ec001 : vmx86+0x5226
fffffad9`80b0a930 fffffad9`8313f7d7 : fffffad9`ba36bbc0 00000000`00000000 fffffad9`ba2ec000 fffffad9`ba2b72b0 : vmx86+0xb34c
fffffad9`80b0a990 fffffad9`831405a2 : 00000000`00010000 00000000`20206f49 00000000`000000b8 00000000`00000001 : vmx86+0x17d7
fffffad9`80b0aa10 fffff800`012c3ad1 : 00000000`00000001 fffffad9`80b0acf0 00000000`00000000 fffffad9`ba36bbc0 : vmx86+0x25a2
fffffad9`80b0aa70 fffff800`012c3b86 : fffffad9`ba397170 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 00000000`00000000 : nt!IopXxxControlFile+0xa6b
fffffad9`80b0ab90 fffff800`0104e5bd : fffffad9`80b0ac18 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000001 fffffad9`ba397170 : nt!NtDeviceIoControlFile+0x56
fffffad9`80b0ac00 00000000`78b83e48 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x3
00000000`0016ed88 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0x78b83e48
STACK_COMMAND: kb
FOLLOWUP_IP:
vmx86+117d
fffffad9`8313f17d cc int 3
SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 1
FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: vmx86
IMAGE_NAME: vmx86.sys
DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 44da61f4
SYMBOL_NAME: vmx86+117d
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0xE0000001_vmx86+117d
BUCKET_ID: X64_0xE0000001_vmx86+117d
Followup: MachineOwner
\----