Francisco Tapia
fhtapia at gmail.com
Thu Sep 24 11:01:33 CDT 2009
In the configuration ( properties) of the server you'll want to leave at least on CPU for the os so in your quad setup allow for 3 CPUs for SQL but one for the os or if you don't want to do this then you can always use the query hint option of MAXDOP=3 so only while the query runs you only tie up 3 CPUs and not all of them and this allows you to still have a responsive server. Sent from my mobile On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:56 AM, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote: > I have a situation way outside my expertise. Yea, yea, I know a lot > of you would ask what is IN my > expertise, we can discuss that another day. > > Anyway, I run two Windows 2003 X64 servers. Quad core, 16 gigs ram, > RAID6 arrays. Reasonably > powerful. Mostly I run SQL Server on one and VMs on the other. In > BOTH CASES I have told the > software, SQL Server for instance, to only use X gigs of RAM, to > leave 2.5 gigs for the OS and other > applications. > > And yet, SQL Server starts a long running process and the server > becomes unresponsive. In some > instances for example, I can load a spreadsheet or whatever... but > it takes forever to load. Just > clicking the start button I have to wait 30 seconds for the start > menu to show. > > Like that. > > I have a query running which is updating a field in a medium size > table - 8 million records or so. > I tried to load another instance of SQL Server. It loaded, but when > I clicked on the databases icon > to drop down and show me the databases it just put up expanding and > locked up the entire system. > > I am at a loss to discover what is going on. It APPEARS to be SQL > Server, though there is nothing > else I run that uses all the memory in this thing so how do I know > it isn't just Windows 2003 > flaking out somehow? I have run memtest-86 for an entire weekend > without a single failure, so I > don't think it is the physical memory. > > I have no clue how to troubleshoot this problem. > > As I write this, the server is completely locked up. I cannot > switch between tasks, the little task > manager icon shows about 50% CPU usage but AFAICT that is just what > was displayed when it locked up. > > In the end I have to do a hard reboot to regain control, and when I > do that I corrupt whatever > database was being worked on. This is insane! > > HELP. > > -- > John W. Colby > www.ColbyConsulting.com > _______________________________________________ > dba-SQLServer mailing list > dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver > http://www.databaseadvisors.com >