Server memory above 4GB

[repairer]

We have a Dell 1850 server running Windows 2003 Enterprise, this acts as our web server. We have recently installed 12GB RAM in this server, upgrading it from 4GB RAM, the application we run on it uses SQL 2005 Enterprise. when we installed the RAM the server only initally saw 4GB RAM, we had someone look at the server and he made changes to a "ini" file I think (excuse my ignorance, new to Win 2003) When we view OS details in system it now shows 12GB RAM.

However we are seeing high levels of CPU usage, at times hitting 100% which makes us think the software is not seeing all the RAM. we have assigned 6GB of RAM to SQL, the rest to the system. Are we missing anything? will SQL see all the RAM? also its a twin processor server, can we map one processor to Windows and one to SQL tp spread the load, or do both processors work together? We know we have a few issues with the coding of our product which we are addressing, but the problem we are experincing is the system seems to be running just the same before we upgraded it from 4Gb RAM to 12Gb RAM, suggesting its not using the extra RAM.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Pete

 

[cpjust]

When you look in Task Manager, which program is using all the CPU?

 

[Cstorms]

32bit os max at 4gb although some apps can take advantage of the PAE switch in the boot.ini

Cory

 

[TweakMYbox]

Double-check the boot.ini file. Make sure it has this at the end of the multi(0)disk(0) statement:

/3GB /USERVA=3030





Mike Fegan

http://www.tweakmybox.com

Learn how to tweak YOUR box, and talk shop with other techies!

 

[mrdenny]

If you have the 64bit platform you don't need to do anything special to SQL other than tell it to use more memory. If you have the 32bit platform you need to enable AWE within SQL Server to get SQL to use more than 2 Gigs of RAM.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

My Blog

 

[Davetoo]

He has Enterprise, which can go up to 64GB of RAM.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[heyyunus]

Take a perfmon log to findout which process is taking more CPU. If you are using 64x OS then you dont need /3GB switch. Also confirm if Lock pages in memory is configured or not. If not then add the SQL service account in that policy.


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Yunus