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

["André Weidemann" <Andre.Weidemann@web.de>]

On 29.07.2011 13:37, Gleb Natapov wrote:
> 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.

You are right about the MSR. The log file from the time of occurrence 
shows the following:

Jul  4 18:55:12 server kernel: [ 1528.618647] kvm: 3123: cpu1 
kvm_set_msr_common: MSR_IA32_DEBUGCTLMSR 0x1, nop
Jul  4 18:55:12 server kernel: [ 1528.619444] kvm: 3123: cpu1 unhandled 
rdmsr: 0x1c9


André