Server 2016 Random Freezing

Question

I have multiple virtual windows 2016 servers running on VMware ESXi 6.5. Four of them will randomly lock up and become unavailable but will still respond to pings. These four have only one virtual cpu core assigned to each. I had a fifth vm doing the same thing that I assigned a second core too. Assigning a second core resolved the problem. None of my Server 2012R2 or Server 2019 virtual machines with single cores are doing this, just the Server 2016 ones. All the other Server 2016 virtual machines with more than one core are also not affected. I have contacted VMware and they could not find a cause for the problem from their end. These four virtual machines see low use and I would prefer not to have to add another processor core to each. I have noticed that these servers run some sort of maintenance process that seems to coordinate with the failure, but I am not sure if this is the cause of the problem.

Has anyone ever had an issue like this with Server 2016?

Answer 1

Might need to take a look at what roles or applications run on them. Also ProcMon may help you narrow down the process responsible for consuming the resources.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon

--please don't forget to Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

They all are basic windows installations cloned from the same template. Each one runs a different proprietary application and one of them is just a file server. They typically fail in the middle of the night. I have been monitoring them with WMI in PRTG. The data I have collected shows no unusual spikes in processor or memory. The servers just suddenly stop responding.

Answer 3

Ok, sounds like you may need to bring in VMWare to figure out why they would lock up.

Answer 4

Here is a shot of my CPU logging for one of the servers.

Answer 5

DSPatrick,

As I mentioned in my first post, I have already worked through a case with VMware. They could not find any crash logs or errors that would suggest it is a vmware issue. They directed me to consider this a guest OS issue.