Question : Problem: NVIDIA Motherboard problems with Virtualization Technology

Hi there experts, I'm having some problems with my BIOS settings on my motherboard. I have Virtualization Technology enabled, as it is necessary for my 64-bit virtual machines, yet each time I leave my computer on overnight (which is every night), or leave it unattended long enough for it to hibernate or sleep or whatever, when I come back, all my virtual machines have stopped working. I must then restart my computer, disable Virtualization Technology in the BIOS, and then restart my computer, and re-enable Virtualization Technology in my BIOS, and then it will work again, until I leave my computer unattended.

This is obviously very aggravating, so, without disabling sleep mode or have it never go into power saving / hibernation mode, how can I fix this?

I'm running Windows Vista 64-bit and my motherboard is a NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra, and I thank you for taking your time to read this (and hopefully provide me with a fix to this madness!).

Answer : Problem: NVIDIA Motherboard problems with Virtualization Technology

This is not a problem with your motherboard ... it's a problem with Intel's VT "surviving" the S3 sleep state.   I've found this on an Asus board, a Gigabyte board, and two Intel boards ... and have had several discussions with Intel support about it.   At first, they said it had to be a BIOS issue ... until I pointed out that two of their own boards had the same issue.   They've since done some testing and confirmed it is an issue => so at least they're aware of it.   The last note I had from them was about 6 weeks ago ... and at that point they had confirmed the issue also occurs on their latest 3-series boards.

... the only sure fix is to not use S3 sleep.   You could simply let the monitors and hard disks turn off after a set interval (this is how I've got my system set ... it's also never turned off);  or you should be able to use hibernation (since this is a full power-off and the BIOS re-initializes everything before the hibernated state is reloaded) ... but as I just noted you have to be sure S3 is never initiated (i.e. you can't sleep, then hibernate).