Memory Configuration for a Windows 2003 SQL Server 2005 Server

  • 32BIT

    Server Type : PowerEdge 2950

    CPU: 2 x 3.0 GHz Quad Core

    Memory: 32GB

    Drives:

    Local

    2 x 73GB RAID1 – C: 20GB OS

    4 x 300GB RAID 5 – J: 336GB Backups

    Array MD1000

    2 x 300GB RAID1 – E: 278GB SQL

    1 x 300GB RAID0 – F: 278GB TempDB

    6 x 300GB RAID10 – G: 836GB DB

    4 x 300GB RAID10 – I: 557GB Logs

    AWE is enabled

    Lock pages in memory is set for system account

    Memory on the Server will not go over 2.9 G and the system comes to a halt until it can process through the workload it has. The server was rebuilt 7 days ago and has not gone over 2.9 Gig. Before the server was rebuilt SQL would use up to 24G.

    There are many posts on this but there does not seem to be answer regarding how to fix the issue if all the steps are followed.

    1.) Do I need the /PAE switch?

    2.) What else do I need to do to troubleshoot?

    DBCC memorystatus

    VM Reserved1660656

    VM Committed1659656

    AWE Allocated0

    Reserved Memory1024

    Reserved Memory In Use0

    VM Reserved1656496

    VM Committed1655648

    AWE Allocated 0

    MultiPage Allocator 31504

    SinglePage Allocator 644112

    VM Reserved1615160

    VM Committed1615160

    AWE Allocated0

    SM Reserved 0

    SM Commited 0

    SinglePage Allocator 0

    MultiPage Allocator 392

    SELECT

    SUM(awe_allocated_kb) / 1024 as [AWE allocated, Mb]

    FROM sys.dm_os_memory_clerks

    The result of this is ZERO

  • 32GB of memory? Have you configured AWE to use about 29GB ( leaving some for the operating system)?

    First, Add the “Lock Pages in Memory” option to the account that has privileges to run SQLServer.exe.

    Then:

    Exec SP_CONFIGURE 'show advanced options', 1

    RECONFIGURE

    go

    exec SP_CONFIGURE 'awe enabled', 1

    RECONFIGURE

    Go

    -- ConfigureMINIMUM to 2 GB

    exec SP_CONFIGURE 'min server memory', 2048

    GO

    RECONFIGURE

    go

    -- Configure MAXIMUM to 29 GB select 29 * 1024

    exec SP_CONFIGURE 'max server memory', 29696

    go

    RECONFIGURE

    Go

    By the way, I've seen sql server take weeks to use up this memory, it depends on load. If there is a heavy load it should start using it fairly quickly.

  • Yes, Thanks, I did run the script as you have laid out.

    I did verify that Lock Pages in Memory has been granted to the service account running SQL SERVER

    We have the benefit of having another server just like the one we are having problems with. when running a work load script on each server the "working" server memory increases to 15G and the "incorrectly working" server never gets higher than 2.9G and takes 33x more time to complete.

    EXECUTE sp_configure 'awe enabled'

    GO

    Returns

    awe enabled0110

    SELECT

    SUM(awe_allocated_kb) / 1024 as [AWE allocated, Mb]

    FROM sys.dm_os_memory_clerks

    returns

    0

  • Has sql server been restarted since the last memory configuration change?

  • 1.) Do I need the /PAE switch?

    Yes, for a 32-bit system you will need to add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini file to utilize more than 4GB of memory.

  • Server Admin says it did have the /PAE switch already

    He says he rebooted after setting the AWE, Locked pages, and max memory 7 days ago. I don't see the reboot in the server log so I am going to go ahead and reboot and see if that makes a difference. I will post results after reboot.

  • The reboot did it. Obviously, the reboot was not done in the correct order this seems to be a hard fast rule. We missed step three and that seems to have made all the difference.

    1. Enabled PAE (boot.ini)

    2. Provide Lock pages in memory privilege via secpol.msc

    3. Reboot

    4. Configure AWE using sp_configure

    5. Restart SQL Services

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