Performance Issue When Microsoft Hyper V* is Enabled on Intel® Compute Module MFS5520VI with Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600

Documentation

Maintenance & Performance

000007828

05/08/2023

Customers report loss of their I/O performance (network and storage) when enabling the Microsoft Hyper V* role on an Intel® Compute Module MFS5520VI with an Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600 Series and more than 32GB memory installed.

This issue is caused by the way the processor presents its memory capabilities to HyperV and the way Hyper V looks at the system memory, and fixes are available from both Microsoft and Intel.

  1. Upgrade the Intel® Modular Server to firmware 6.7 or higher, set BIOS defaults, and then enter the BIOS and make the following settings change:
    On advanced PCIe* configuration screen go to maximize/minimize memory below 4GB and set it to MIN.

  2. Go to the Microsoft Web site and download and apply the following Microsoft hotfix:
    Performance decreases in Windows Server 2008* R2 when the Hyper V role is installed on a computer that uses Intel Westmere or Sandy Bridge processors
    and
    You cannot run a Windows 8*-based or Windows Server 2012*-based virtual machine in Windows Server 2008* or in Windows Server 2008 R2.