Problem getting SQL Server 2000 EE to use more than 4GB of memory

We are trying to get our SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition server to
use more than 4GB of memory on a machine with 8GB of physical memory
(running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition).
I have done the following:
1. Updated Boot.ini to have the /3GB /PAE switch
2. set Max Server Memory to 7168MB using sp_configure
3. set Min Server Memory to 1024MB using sp_configure
4. set AWE enabled using sp_configure
5. configured user account that SQL Server runs under (SYSTEM) to have
rights for the "Lock Page in Memory" policy
When I look at "total server memory" for SQL Server under the
peformance viewer, it is using 4GB of memory. When I look at the task
manager, we have 2GB of physical memory free. I understand that with
AWE, the OS needs 1GB of memory to manage the extended memory. With
the /3GB switch, the OS will allocate 1GB to the kernel. So that makes
6GB of memory... Why are there 2GB of memory free, and why can't SQL
Server use it? I even added up the memory of all processes running in
the task manager, and it adds up to maybe 30MB.
Any ideas why we only get 4GB for SQL Server? We want to put 16GB of
RAM in this server, but until we can prove that SQL Server can
actually use it, we can't justify it. Is this 2GB of "free" RAM really
free, or allocated to something else such that SQL Server cannot use
it?Has your workload driven the SQL instance sufficiently hard on memory? Note
that until SQL Server is pressured to use more memory, it won't.
Linchi
"advisortechnical" wrote:
> We are trying to get our SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition server to
> use more than 4GB of memory on a machine with 8GB of physical memory
> (running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition).
> I have done the following:
> 1. Updated Boot.ini to have the /3GB /PAE switch
> 2. set Max Server Memory to 7168MB using sp_configure
> 3. set Min Server Memory to 1024MB using sp_configure
> 4. set AWE enabled using sp_configure
> 5. configured user account that SQL Server runs under (SYSTEM) to have
> rights for the "Lock Page in Memory" policy
> When I look at "total server memory" for SQL Server under the
> peformance viewer, it is using 4GB of memory. When I look at the task
> manager, we have 2GB of physical memory free. I understand that with
> AWE, the OS needs 1GB of memory to manage the extended memory. With
> the /3GB switch, the OS will allocate 1GB to the kernel. So that makes
> 6GB of memory... Why are there 2GB of memory free, and why can't SQL
> Server use it? I even added up the memory of all processes running in
> the task manager, and it adds up to maybe 30MB.
> Any ideas why we only get 4GB for SQL Server? We want to put 16GB of
> RAM in this server, but until we can prove that SQL Server can
> actually use it, we can't justify it. Is this 2GB of "free" RAM really
> free, or allocated to something else such that SQL Server cannot use
> it?
>|||On Apr 24, 8:28=A0am, Linchi Shea <LinchiS...@.discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:
> Has your workload driven the SQL instance sufficiently hard on memory? Not=e
> that until SQL Server is pressured to use more memory, it won't.
> Linchi
>
> "advisortechnical" wrote:
> > We are trying to get our SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition server to
> > use more than 4GB of memory on a machine with 8GB of physical memory
> > (running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition).
> > I have done the following:
> > 1. Updated Boot.ini to have the /3GB /PAE switch
> > 2. set Max Server Memory to 7168MB using sp_configure
> > 3. set Min Server Memory to 1024MB using sp_configure
> > 4. set AWE enabled using sp_configure
> > 5. configured user account that SQL Server runs under (SYSTEM) to have
> > rights for the "Lock Page in Memory" policy
> > When I look at "total server memory" for SQL Server under the
> > peformance viewer, it is using 4GB of memory. When I look at the task
> > manager, we have 2GB of physical memory free. I understand that with
> > AWE, the OS needs 1GB of memory to manage the extended memory. With
> > the /3GB switch, the OS will allocate 1GB to the kernel. So that makes
> > 6GB of memory... Why are there 2GB of memory free, and why can't SQL
> > Server use it? I even added up the memory of all processes running in
> > the task manager, and it adds up to maybe 30MB.
> > Any ideas why we only get 4GB for SQL Server? We want to put 16GB of
> > RAM in this server, but until we can prove that SQL Server can
> > actually use it, we can't justify it. Is this 2GB of "free" RAM really
> > free, or allocated to something else such that SQL Server cannot use
> > it... Hide quoted text -
> - Show quoted text -
It seems you have done all the things what is required to configure
SQL AWE. You can also stress the server by genearting some test data
on the same.
Please verify if you have SP4 and AWE patch is applied on above.
Thanks
Ajay Rengunthwar
MCTS,MCDBA,MCAD|||On Apr 24, 8:12=A0pm, Ajay Rengunthwar <aju...@.gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 24, 8:28=A0am, Linchi Shea <LinchiS...@.discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> > Has your workload driven the SQL instance sufficiently hard on memory? N=ote
> > that until SQL Server is pressured to use more memory, it won't.
> > Linchi
> > "advisortechnical" wrote:
> > > We are trying to get our SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition server to
> > > use more than 4GB of memory on a machine with 8GB of physical memory
> > > (running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition).
> > > I have done the following:
> > > 1. Updated Boot.ini to have the /3GB /PAE switch
> > > 2. set Max Server Memory to 7168MB using sp_configure
> > > 3. set Min Server Memory to 1024MB using sp_configure
> > > 4. set AWE enabled using sp_configure
> > > 5. configured user account that SQL Server runs under (SYSTEM) to have=
> > > rights for the "Lock Page in Memory" policy
> > > When I look at "total server memory" for SQL Server under the
> > > peformance viewer, it is using 4GB of memory. When I look at the task
> > > manager, we have 2GB of physical memory free. I understand that with
> > > AWE, the OS needs 1GB of memory to manage the extended memory. With
> > > the /3GB switch, the OS will allocate 1GB to the kernel. So that makes=
> > > 6GB of memory... Why are there 2GB of memory free, and why can't SQL
> > > Server use it? I even added up the memory of all processes running in
> > > the task manager, and it adds up to maybe 30MB.
> > > Any ideas why we only get 4GB for SQL Server? We want to put 16GB of
> > > RAM in this server, but until we can prove that SQL Server can
> > > actually use it, we can't justify it. Is this 2GB of "free" RAM really=
> > > free, or allocated to something else such that SQL Server cannot use
> > > it... Hide quoted text -
> > - Show quoted text -
> It seems you have done all the things what is required to configure
> SQL AWE. You can also stress the server by genearting some test data
> on the same.
> Please verify if you have SP4 and AWE patch is applied on above.
> Thanks
> Ajay Rengunthwar
> MCTS,MCDBA,MCAD- Hide quoted text -
> - Show quoted text -
Thanks for the advice. I ran a stress test by opening several query
analyzer windows and running a select * query on a table with millions
of rows. I found that sql server->memory manger->target server memory
and total server memory stayed fixed at 4164408 (3.97 GB), however the
amount of available physical memory in the windows task manager had
shrunk to 1 GB from 2 GB (and it is continuing to shink as the test is
still running).
So I think on a machine with 8GB, with AWE and PAE enabled, SQL Server
can only take 3.97 GB of memory, because a certain amount of memory
needs to be free for Windows, even though it is "free" memory and the
kernel has 1GB of memory. This free memory is decreasing as the stress
test is running.
I am wondering if I add more RAM to this machine, will SQL Server will
be able to use it?|||On Apr 25, 4:08=A0pm, advisortechnical <chand.bel...@.caremark.com>
wrote:
> On Apr 24, 8:12=A0pm, Ajay Rengunthwar <aju...@.gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > On Apr 24, 8:28=A0am, Linchi Shea <LinchiS...@.discussions.microsoft.com>=
> > wrote:
> > > Has your workload driven the SQL instance sufficiently hard on memory?= Note
> > > that until SQL Server is pressured to use more memory, it won't.
> > > Linchi
> > > "advisortechnical" wrote:
> > > > We are trying to get our SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition server t=o
> > > > use more than 4GB of memory on a machine with 8GB of physical memory=
> > > > (running Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition).
> > > > I have done the following:
> > > > 1. Updated Boot.ini to have the /3GB /PAE switch
> > > > 2. set Max Server Memory to 7168MB using sp_configure
> > > > 3. set Min Server Memory to 1024MB using sp_configure
> > > > 4. set AWE enabled using sp_configure
> > > > 5. configured user account that SQL Server runs under (SYSTEM) to ha=ve
> > > > rights for the "Lock Page in Memory" policy
> > > > When I look at "total server memory" for SQL Server under the
> > > > peformance viewer, it is using 4GB of memory. When I look at the tas=k
> > > > manager, we have 2GB of physical memory free. I understand that with=
> > > > AWE, the OS needs 1GB of memory to manage the extended memory. With
> > > > the /3GB switch, the OS will allocate 1GB to the kernel. So that mak=es
> > > > 6GB of memory... Why are there 2GB of memory free, and why can't SQL=
> > > > Server use it? I even added up the memory of all processes running i=n
> > > > the task manager, and it adds up to maybe 30MB.
> > > > Any ideas why we only get 4GB for SQL Server? We want to put 16GB of=
> > > > RAM in this server, but until we can prove that SQL Server can
> > > > actually use it, we can't justify it. Is this 2GB of "free" RAM real=ly
> > > > free, or allocated to something else such that SQL Server cannot use=
> > > > it... Hide quoted text -
> > > - Show quoted text -
> > It seems you have done all the things what is required to configure
> > SQL AWE. You can also stress the server by genearting some test data
> > on the same.
> > Please verify if you have SP4 and AWE patch is applied on above.
> > Thanks
> > Ajay Rengunthwar
> > MCTS,MCDBA,MCAD- Hide quoted text -
> > - Show quoted text -
> Thanks for the advice. I ran a stress test by opening several query
> analyzer windows and running a select * query on a table with millions
> of rows. I found that sql server->memory manger->target server memory
> and total server memory stayed fixed at 4164408 (3.97 GB), however the
> amount of available physical memory in the windows task manager had
> shrunk to 1 GB from 2 GB (and it is continuing to shink as the test is
> still running).
> So I think on a machine with 8GB, with AWE and PAE enabled, SQL Server
> can only take 3.97 GB of memory, because a certain amount of memory
> needs to be free for Windows, even though it is "free" memory and the
> kernel has 1GB of memory. This free memory is decreasing as the stress
> test is running.
> I am wondering if I add more RAM to this machine, will SQL Server will
> be able to use it... Hide quoted text -
> - Show quoted text -
I think it is the system cache that needs this memory. When I run a
stress test, the amount of available memory decreases and the system
cache increases. It is confusing -- why would it say there are 2GB of
free memory, if it was allocated to the system cache? Of course, some
memory must be given to the system cache, otherwise these huge queries
couldn't do disk i/o efficiently. I changed one of the registry
settings to allow a large system cache, however I saw no change in SQL
Server memory utilization.sql