Considering upgrading a Netfinity 5000

[lsgko]

On a Netfinity 5000, PII 350Mhz 1GB Ram running NT Server 4.0 and MS SQL Server 7. I'm curious about the following:
1) How do I know if the NT will support multiple processors?
2) Will I have to reinstall NT in order to take advantage of the 2nd processor?
3) If I was to upgrade to two 450Mhz processors, what kind of performance increase would I see overall?
4) With the 2x 450 Mhz, what kind of performance increase would I see in the speed of the SQL queries?

Thanks in Advance.

 

[catorze]

Answers:
1. NT Server supports multiple processors (NT Product docs)
2. Officially, yes. The NT Resource Kit has a utility (UPTOMP.EXE) that allegedly installs the MP HAL, but if it were mine, I wouldn't go that route. Does MS support the Resource Kit?
3. Without a tons of math that would make your head hurts, you can expect about a 40-50% increase in performance - part from the 2nd processor, less from the faster CPUs.
4. Same as Answer #3.

Your biggest gains would come from a newer OS and version of SQL that is written for the much faster CPUs currently available (10x faster than your current CPU). If you are seeing bottlenecks, that's probably the right solution. If you're just looking to maximize what you can do with what you got, no problem, but consider adding as much RAM as the box will hold. Keep in mind, the Netfinity 5000 uses RDIMMs (buffered memory). Not using them can cause you to find out what NMI means.

 

[lsgko]

Would there be in a noticable difference in upgrading from 2x PII 400Mhz to two PIII 550mhz processors?

Could your provide some links to the sites that discuss the performance increase of adding a 2nd processor?

 

[yert33]

catrze,
i'd like to know more about RDIMMs and what NMI does mean, please. I have 10 5000's I'm responsible for. Maybe some of my problems are with non-RDIMM ram?

 

[catorze]

RDIMMs (or Registered or buffered memory) are a slightly different architecture than DIMMs (unbuffered memory) - something like an extra bit to confirm parity - not the important part. The important part is that if your server requires RDIMMs, you must use them. If it doesn't, you can still use them. NMI stands for Non-Maskable Interrupt. It usually points to a memory problem (all memory including caches and RAM can cause this). If you run unbuffered memory in a system that requires RDIMMs (like the 5000), you may experience NMIs. In the case of the 5000, the default configuration is to reboot (versus halt) on NMIs.

Moral of the story - use the correct memory in the system. If you're not, this could be your problem.

 

[yert33]

Thank you, catorze.