Check out this perfmon data please

[mcseguy9]

Hi everyone. I'm attaching a saved instance of perfmon and would like your thoughts. Mostly I'm reading memory items because I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with event ID's 333 and 2020. Anyway, I setup the server this past weekend to notify me via e-mail when certain things happen and I received an e-mail this morning telling me something was going on. I RDP'd into the server and took a look at Task Manager and found the store.exe process was using about 650 MB of memory (this seems to be normal, or at least this is what it's usually at), and then I saw another program, sqlservr.exe, using almost 900 MB of memory. This one I haven't seen before, or at least not using this much memory. Granted, I don't generally monitor this server and am only called in to assist when there's a problem, but I setup the e-mail notification over this past weekend "just because". I know the program using almost 900 MB of memory is related to SQL server but what I want from you all is to give me your interpretation of this one "screen shot". I'm not a perfmon expert by any stretch of the imagination. I'm definitely a newbie to this tool. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

[Steve R Jones]

Not sure what the screen shots are for - but what is you overall question?

I have SQL running on all of my machines cause I need and use it and it uses a lot more then 900 megs of ram..

[mcseguy9]

Here's another pic, too. It might be more helpful for those of you who view it in this way.

[mcseguy9]

I guess what I'm looking for is anyone's opinion on what the data means. I've been watching the server quite a bit over the last two or three days and haven't seen what I'm now seeing. Granted I was watching it over the weekend, but yesterday everyone was in the office as usual and what you're seeing now wasn't happening yesterday. I'm just looking for opinions on what experienced admins would draw from looking at what's happening in the images.

BTW, this server is about 5 years old and has 3 GB RAM. It can only support up to 4 GB. It's running Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard.

[Steve R Jones]

What is it you think you're seeing or would like to see? Does everyone in the office do exactly the same thing from one day to another day... where mem usage etc would be exactly the same?

Is the machine up and running and everone but you is happy;)

[mcseguy9]

Hi Steve. This server belongs to a friend and when he needs some help I do what I can. I'm no server admin, though. :)

I began running perfmon to see what's going on, but specifically because of event ID's 333 and 2020, which go hand in hand. When these event ID's start popping up it's just a matter of time before the server slows down, stops responding well, and then finally hangs up altogether. I've read some things about what can cause those event ID's and those ID's tell us there's a shortage of system resources, specifically RAM. So I was using perfmon to measure what was suggested - Available Mbytes, Nonpooled pages, etc. So I was just checking in on the server this morning and saw what I did and thought "Wow, that doesn't look good."

However, speaking with my friend he said everything seems to be fine. They aren't noticing anything odd or unusual. And also, just as a reminder, they were in the office yesterday doing business as usual, too. Everyone there does the same thing pretty much day in and day out, to answer your question.

How do you identify what applications use SQL server? I know they have accounting apps that use it, but I'd like a definitive answer.

Also, this server has 3 GB RAM and can only support up to 4 GB. It's running the 32-bit version of Windows Server 2003 (Small Business Server Standard). Looking at the data in the perfmon snapshots would it possibly be beneficial to add one more GB of RAM even though 32-bit OS's aren't supposed to necessarily be able to see it all?

[Steve R Jones]

I'll be darn if I can remember the name - but there is a real popular backup up software that runs on SQL.

As far as adding anonther gig of ram - it would depend on how much is currently being used. Look in good old task manager.

[mcseguy9]

Thanks Steve. Task Manager shows that normally PF Usage is around 2 GB. The processes show the store.exe program getting as high as 650 MB and all of the VIPRE programs might add up to another 400 to 500 MB I'd say (going off of memory here so could be off a bit). Regarding SQL Server I found in All Programs that SQL Server 2005 is listed so I'm assuming that's the version that's running.