Suddenly system lost VT-x support
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Strange problem I encountered today.
I have an old desktop machine running Windows 7 and I've got a Xeon E5430 or something like that happily churning away inside. I use this one mostly for vms and it works quite nicely.
Until today.
I wanted to run one of my 64 bit vms but virtual box wouldn't launch it, saying my processor doesn't support VT-x. So I rebooted, checked bios and virtualization is tuned on. So I rebooted, run virtualbox, nope, still doesn't work.
I tried VMWare, I check an intel tool they supply that shows available processor technologies, nada.
What gives?
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
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Have you tried turning it all the way off? Maybe toggling the setting?
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=61611
Does wmic say its available?
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@kt_ isn't it the thing that you can disable in the BIOS?
Maybe you got a rootkit?
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@wharrgarbl said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
rootkit
I read a whitepaper about this once about malware that could effectively load itself as the OS then use virtualization to load the users OS. Basically undetectable except that virtualization gets disabled.
I don't think this is the case though...
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Strange problem I encountered today.
I have an old desktop machine running Windows 7 and I've got a Xeon E5430 or something like that happily churning away inside. I use this one mostly for vms and it works quite nicely.
Until today.
I wanted to run one of my 64 bit vms but virtual box wouldn't launch it, saying my processor doesn't support VT-x. So I rebooted, checked bios and virtualization is tuned on. So I rebooted, run virtualbox, nope, still doesn't work.
I tried VMWare, I check an intel tool they supply that shows available processor technologies, nada.
What gives?
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
What modal is your motherboard? Is there any firmware update that need to be installed?
(I know it's very unlikely because recent Win7 updates are mostly related file sharing and not supposed to touch anything related to virtualization, but...)
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
You could still try running
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
from an elevated command prompt and restarting, just in case. That's what I use to change between Hyper-V and VirtualBox.
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@wharrgarbl said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ isn't it the thing that you can disable in the BIOS?
Maybe you got a rootkit?It is. It's been enabled, then I disabled it, rebooted and enabled it again.
I'm sure it worked, because when you fuck with virtualization it is recommended to shut down computer and wait for a few seconds before starting it again, otherwise it's supposed to fail to start a few times. The latter's what happened to me.
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@swayde said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Have you tried turning it all the way off? Maybe toggling the setting?
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=61611
Does wmic say its available?
I'm not sure what you mean by hypervisor. VirtualBox? Nope, I didn't. I only updated it after it started failing. Then I installed VMWare player and it doesn't work either.
I tried toggling the feature with reboots between but no shutdown -> switch -> shutdown -> turn on -> shutdown -> switch -> shutdown -> turn in. I'll try it out today.
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@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Strange problem I encountered today.
I have an old desktop machine running Windows 7 and I've got a Xeon E5430 or something like that happily churning away inside. I use this one mostly for vms and it works quite nicely.
Until today.
I wanted to run one of my 64 bit vms but virtual box wouldn't launch it, saying my processor doesn't support VT-x. So I rebooted, checked bios and virtualization is tuned on. So I rebooted, run virtualbox, nope, still doesn't work.
I tried VMWare, I check an intel tool they supply that shows available processor technologies, nada.
What gives?
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
What modal is your motherboard? Is there any firmware update that need to be installed?
(I know it's very unlikely because recent Win7 updates are mostly related file sharing and not supposed to touch anything related to virtualization, but...)
The motherboard is like a decade old. I doubt there is a BIOS update pending and even if there was, it wouldn't get installed without my knowledge.
I'll check, though. Thanks!
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@lb_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
You could still try running
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
from an elevated command prompt and restarting, just in case. That's what I use to change between Hyper-V and VirtualBox.I'll try this out, although I doubt it'll help. Windows 7 doesn't have Hyper-V.
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Strange problem I encountered today.
I have an old desktop machine running Windows 7 and I've got a Xeon E5430 or something like that happily churning away inside. I use this one mostly for vms and it works quite nicely.
Until today.
I wanted to run one of my 64 bit vms but virtual box wouldn't launch it, saying my processor doesn't support VT-x. So I rebooted, checked bios and virtualization is tuned on. So I rebooted, run virtualbox, nope, still doesn't work.
I tried VMWare, I check an intel tool they supply that shows available processor technologies, nada.
What gives?
I mean, I thought Hyper-V, turning it on can have such an effect, but it's Windows 7, so no Hyper-V here. I'm running out of ideas…
What modal is your motherboard? Is there any firmware update that need to be installed?
(I know it's very unlikely because recent Win7 updates are mostly related file sharing and not supposed to touch anything related to virtualization, but...)
The motherboard is like a decade old. I doubt there is a BIOS update pending and even if there was, it wouldn't get installed without my knowledge.
I'll check, though. Thanks!
@cheong, the motherboard in case is P43-ES3G, Gigabyte.
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One thing I can think of I did recently was I installed fsecure antivirus in place of NIS and then removed it and installed NIS back again. I'm not sure if I used the VMs after I did that, hard to say.
BUT, I read that Avast used to grab virtualization, maybe that's the issue here, NIS doing that or some rouge leftover from fsecure?
Shit.
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Just checked, the only stuff I installed since last running my VMs were: .NET Core 2.0 preview, Spotify and VS Code. Then after I noticed the vms wouldn't start yesterday I installed VMWare player, this intel tool and updated VBox.
This is fucking ridiculous. Gonna start the system in safe mode. :/
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Just checked, the only stuff I installed since last running my VMs were: .NET Core 2.0 preview, Spotify and VS Code. Then after I noticed the vms wouldn't start yesterday I installed VMWare player, this intel tool and updated VBox.
This is fucking ridiculous. Gonna start the system in safe mode. :/
Turns out fucking shit does not work in safe mode, neither does the intel tool nor VMWare. On the other hand, to answer @LB_'s question, wmi is not supposed to tell you if VT-x is enabled.
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That's weird. I ran Ubuntu 64 bit from a live cd and it says this machine doesn't support VT-x, too.
I guess my mobo or cpu is failing?
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
That's weird. I ran Ubuntu 64 bit from a live cd and it says this machine doesn't support VT-x, too.
I guess my mobo or cpu is failing?
Yeah, I was going to suggest trying a Linux live image and running
cat /proc/cpurinfo
. If you do that, what does it say for model info and flags?
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@dragnslcr said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
That's weird. I ran Ubuntu 64 bit from a live cd and it says this machine doesn't support VT-x, too.
I guess my mobo or cpu is failing?
Yeah, I was going to suggest trying a Linux live image and running
cat /proc/cpurinfo
. If you do that, what does it say for model info and flags?I can't remember what it said, but it didn't say
vmx
.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Basically undetectable
That's theoretically possible, but in practice, all hypervisors "leak" lots of details about themselves to the inside.
I mean, it's one thing to simulate some hardware interfaces well enough for software to work, but it's an entirely different problem to simulate them well enough that no one can tell the difference even with detailed analysis. Hardware has lots of quirks.
And frankly there's no tangible benefit for the malware maker. Spend the same time writing UEFI exploits and it will be 50x more effective.
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@anonymous234 said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
simulate some hardware interfaces well enough for software to work,
I think the point of the paper is that it wouldn't. Only the CPU would be virtualized, maybe some RAM and the network card, but everything else would get passed through directly transparently. This small amount of change wouldn't trigger activation and presumably everything looks exactly the same (because we're only virtualizing two things instead of everything).
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@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
Only the CPU would be virtualized
This is all that really needs to be virtualized - you can pass all other hardware directly to the VM. AFAIK, Cheat Engine can be used in such mode.
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
P43-ES3G
There are 3 revisions of that motherboard on Gigabyte's site, but anyway... seems only the firmware update on 2009/08/31 which is related on "Improve CPU compatibility" could be related. Others are mostly related to power management.
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@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
P43-ES3G
There are 3 revisions of that motherboard on Gigabyte's site, but anyway... seems only the firmware update on 2009/08/31 which is related on "Improve CPU compatibility" could be related. Others are mostly related to power management.
Yeah, and that one I already installed a while ago.
Looks like I'm gonna need to go shopping sooner than later. :)
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
P43-ES3G
There are 3 revisions of that motherboard on Gigabyte's site, but anyway... seems only the firmware update on 2009/08/31 which is related on "Improve CPU compatibility" could be related. Others are mostly related to power management.
Yeah, and that one I already installed a while ago.
Ummm... Perhaps reflash the BIOS? If some bit flipped ...
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@cabrito said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
P43-ES3G
There are 3 revisions of that motherboard on Gigabyte's site, but anyway... seems only the firmware update on 2009/08/31 which is related on "Improve CPU compatibility" could be related. Others are mostly related to power management.
Yeah, and that one I already installed a while ago.
Ummm... Perhaps reflash the BIOS? If some bit flipped ...
Good idea.
However, it turns out there's no need for that.
I put the computer to sleep yesterday. I turned it on now and suddenly all my VMs are working correctly, again.
So I popped open the Intel tool and it says:
What the actual fuck?
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@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@cabrito said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@cheong said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
P43-ES3G
There are 3 revisions of that motherboard on Gigabyte's site, but anyway... seems only the firmware update on 2009/08/31 which is related on "Improve CPU compatibility" could be related. Others are mostly related to power management.
Yeah, and that one I already installed a while ago.
Ummm... Perhaps reflash the BIOS? If some bit flipped ...
Good idea.
However, it turns out there's no need for that.
I put the computer to sleep yesterday. I turned it on now and suddenly all my VMs are working correctly, again.
So I popped open the Intel tool and it says:
What the actual fuck?
VT-x decided it was tired and took a nap, of course. It's the only logical explanation.
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@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Pretty sure I saw that the CPU doesn't support it. It's a pretty damn old Xeon.
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@dragnslcr said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Pretty sure I saw that the CPU doesn't support it. It's a pretty damn old Xeon.
It's like a decade old, yup. And as you say: this table doesn't show whether features are on or off. It says if these are supported by the CPU.
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@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Regarding the bug? My laptop still hasn't got the tsx disable update.
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@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
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@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
Apparently there was an RCE glitch recently discovered dealing with Intel Hyper-V reading.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
Apparently there was an RCE glitch recently discovered dealing with Intel Hyper-V reading.
You mean this one? This CPU is way older than those.
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@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
Apparently there was an RCE glitch recently discovered dealing with Intel Hyper-V reading.
You mean this one? This CPU is way older than those.
Just because it was discovered in a modern processor, doesn't mean said processor didn't use base schematics et al that had the same bug since forever.
You know, like the SMB 1.0 bug that wannacry used?
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@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
Apparently there was an RCE glitch recently discovered dealing with Intel Hyper-V reading.
You mean this one? This CPU is way older than those.
Just because it was discovered in a modern processor, doesn't mean said processor didn't use base schematics et al that had the same bug since forever.
You know, like the SMB 1.0 bug that wannacry used?
That's true, but
The earliest of these Intel processor models were launched in September
2015. If your processor is older than that, it will not be an Skylake
or Kaby Lake processor and you can just ignore this advisory.And I haven't seen anything indicating it's around in CPUs before or after those models.
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@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@tsaukpaetra said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dreikin said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@dkf said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
@kt_ said in Suddenly system lost VT-x support:
I see you have hyperthreading turned off. Good.
Eh?
Apparently there was an RCE glitch recently discovered dealing with Intel Hyper-V reading.
You mean this one? This CPU is way older than those.
Just because it was discovered in a modern processor, doesn't mean said processor didn't use base schematics et al that had the same bug since forever.
You know, like the SMB 1.0 bug that wannacry used?
That's true, but
The earliest of these Intel processor models were launched in September
2015. If your processor is older than that, it will not be an Skylake
or Kaby Lake processor and you can just ignore this advisory.And I haven't seen anything indicating it's around in CPUs before or after those models.
Research to