Aspects relate to a computer system and a computer implemented method for resolving abnormal contention on the computer system. The method includes detecting, using a processor and at a hypervisor level of the computer system, abnormal contention of a serially reusable resource caused by a first virtual machine. The abnormal contention includes the first virtual machine experiencing resource starvation of computer system resources used for processing the first virtual machine, causing the first virtual machine to block the serially reusable resource from a second virtual machine that is waiting to use the serially reusable resource. The method also includes adjusting resource allocation at the hypervisor level of the computer system resources for the first virtual machine, processing the first virtual machine based on the resource allocation, and releasing the serially reusable resource by the first virtual machine in response to the first virtual machine processing.