VirtualBox causing big peaks in CPU

[Chris Jones]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:
> 
>>> Too _much_ memory.  Win XP shouldn't need 400Mb of memory in VirtualBox,
>>> and that's (virtual) memory that will no longer be available to your
>>> Linux tasks.  So you get swapping, and CPU usage.
>> That entirely depends on a) how much ram the host machine has and b)
>> what else it is doing whilst it is running the VM with 400Mb ram. If the
>> conditions are right you can give a VM as much ram as you want...
> 
> Sure you can - but if you're seeing huge CPU spikes, that's a clue :-)

Swapping doesn't normally generate a lot of CPU usage. In fact the 
opposite normally (IME) as the CPU is left waiting for data to be ready 
for it to use.

Chris