Re: Windows7 crashes inside the VM when starting a certain program

[Gleb Natapov <gleb@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 09:20:35AM +0200, André Weidemann wrote:
> On 27.07.2011 10:56, Gleb Natapov wrote:
> >On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 12:57:44PM +0200, André Weidemann wrote:
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>On 26.07.2011 12:08, Gleb Natapov wrote:
> >>>On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 07:29:04AM +0200, André Weidemann wrote:
> >>>>On 07.07.2011 07:26, André Weidemann wrote:
> >>>>>Hi,
> >>>>>I am running Windows7 x64 in a VM which crashes after starting a certain
> >>>>>game. Actually there are two games both from the same company, that make
> >>>>>the VM crash after starting them.
> >>>>>Windows crashes right after starting the game. With the 1st game the
> >>>>>screen goes black as usual and the cursor keeps spinning for 3-5 seconds
> >>>>>until Windows crashes. With the second game I get to 3D the login
> >>>>>screen. The game then crashes after logging in.
> >>>>>Windows displays this error message on the first crash:
> >>>>>http://pastebin.com/kMzk9Jif
> >>>>>Windows then finishes writing the crash dump and restarts.
> >>>>>I can reproduce Windows crashing every time I start the game while the
> >>>>>VM keeps running without any problems.
> >>>>>When Windows reboots after the first crash and the game is started
> >>>>>again, the message on the following blue screen changes slightly and
> >>>>>stays the same(except for the addresses) for every following crash:
> >>>>>http://pastebin.com/jVtBc4ZH
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I first thought that this might be related to a certain feature in 3D
> >>>>>acceleration being used, but Futuremark 3DMark Vantage or 3DMark 11 run
> >>>>>without any problems. They run a bit choppy on some occasions, but do
> >>>>>that without crashing Windows7 or the VM.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>How can I proceed to investigate what is going wrong?
> >>>>
> >>>>I did some testing and found out that Windows7 does not crash
> >>>>anymore when changing "-cpu host" to "-cpu Nehalem". After doing so,
> >>>What is your host cpu (cat /proc/cpuinfo)?
> >>
> >>The server is currently running on 2 out of 8 cores with kernel boot
> >>parameter "maxcpus=2".
> >>
> >>flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr
> >>pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
> >>pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good
> >>xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est
> >>tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida tpr_shadow
> >>vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
> >Flags that are present on -cpu host but not -cpu Nehalem (excluding vmx
> >related flags):
> >
> >vme dts acpi ss ht tm pbe rdtscp constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good
> >xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 xtpr pdcm  ida
> >
> >Some of them may be synthetic and some of them may be filtered by KVM.
> >
> >Can you try to run "-cpu host,-vme,-dts..." (specifying all of those
> >flags with -). Drop those that qemu does not recognize. See if result
> >will be the same as with -cpu Nehalem. If yes, then try to find out with
> >flag make the difference.
> 
> I started the VM with all flags that differ between the two CPUs.
> After removing the ones qemu-kvm did not recognize, I started the VM
> again with the following line:
> -cpu host,-vme,-acpi,-ss,-ht,-tm,-pbe,-rdtscp,-dtes64,-monitor,-ds_cpl,-est,-tm2,-xtpr,-pdcm
> \
> 
> Running the program under Windows7 inside the VM, caused Windows to
> crash again with a BSoD.
> The disassembly of the address fffff8000288320c shows the following:
> http://pastebin.com/7yzTYJSG
> 
Looks like it tries to read MSR_LASTBRANCH_TOS MSR which kvm does not
support. Do you see something interesting in dmesg? I wonder how
availability of the MSR should be checked.

--
			Gleb.