Thanks for all the replies.
Looking at the specs for the processor it does not seem to have the vmx features in /proc/cpuinfo:
and the output from grep -E ‘vmx|svm’ /proc/cpuinfo is empty.
/lib/modules/3.10.0-229.7.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/arch/x86/kvm
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$ ls
kvm-amd.ko kvm-intel.ko kvm.ko
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$ modprobe kvm-intel
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'kvm_intel': Operation not permitted
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$ lsmod | sort
...
iwlwifi 112501 1 iwldvm
jbd2 102940 1 ext4
kvm 461126 0
libahci 32009 1 ahci
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$ modprobe kvm-amd
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'kvm_amd': Operation not permitted
[keith.roberts@acer-centos kvm]$ modprobe kvm-intel
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'kvm_intel': Operation not permitted
Is it still possible to create some KVM type virtual machines with this laptop, to be ported to the VM host server machine later, or