701 error

We are experiencing the same errors and same "lock out" behavior. We have the same version/patch level of SQL installed but are in a 32 bit env. The box has 32GB of memory. Nether the bPool or VAS show any pressure when the "out of system memory error" occurs. Since this error usually indicates a VAS problem we tried increasing VAS to 1GB w/the -g flag. It made no difference. PSS has been working on the case for 3 weeks. They dont seem to be finding any evidince of memory pressure either. When I last spole to the escalation engineer yesterday it seemed that they are going to recommend reducing the number of databases on the server. I asked for clarification as to whether we are hitting a 32 bit barrior, an instance limitation, or both. I am awaiting the answer. How many databases do you have on your server? We had between 1700 and 1900 (the number varies) at times when the error occured. We are now at 1500, and have not had the error in the 2 days since reducing the number of databases...
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Steve,
Further comment.
I have been having the problem about once a month for several months and
have not had any joy in discovering what to do about it. Other notes on my
case:
- Once this starts, my CPU utilization will go to very close to 100%. If I
log out some heavy users, my CPU will dip to 70% or 80% for about 20
seconds, then climb back to near 100%.
- At this point, spid 1 is the busiest of the spids. (Which makes it seem
that the SQL Server is eating up its resources trying to find resources for
users.)
- Very Strange Discovery. One time I found that one workstation which had
been running a very large transaction, would, if turned off, drop the server
CPU to normal. But if I turned that workstation back on, even though I did
not access the server, the server workload would go back to 100%. It was as
if the SQL Server remembered the workstation and would try to do something
for it. (The next day this workstation did not have such an effect.) As I
said, Very Strange.
We also are on 32-bit using AWE memory, but only 12 GB. (We also only have
about 60 databases on the machine, nothing like your 1500+.) This weekend,
we are upgrading to 64-bit Windows 2003/SQL Server 2005. We will see if
this recurs, or whether it is an AWE flaw.
This thread from a Red Gate user suggests the problem is not free memory,
but free contiguous memory.
[url]http://www.red-gate.com/MessageBoard/viewtopic.php?p=15220&sid=9c1df0b8ddef4fc6745b1ce1 33f1e6b1[/url]
So, if very large queries and cursor usage are responsible for fragmenting
memory (per something I read elsewhere) I don't know what to do except to
schedule periodic restarts of the the SQL Server.
RLF
<steve> wrote in message news:200722311948sgoodwin@.autotask.com...
> We are experiencing the same errors and same "lock out" behavior. We have
> the same version/patch level of SQL installed but are in a 32 bit env. The
> box has 32GB of memory. Nether the bPool or VAS show any pressure when the
> "out of system memory error" occurs. Since this error usually indicates a
> VAS problem we tried increasing VAS to 1GB w/the -g flag. It made no
> difference. PSS has been working on the case for 3 weeks. They dont seem
> to be finding any evidince of memory pressure either. When I last spole to
> the escalation engineer yesterday it seemed that they are going to
> recommend reducing the number of databases on the server. I asked for
> clarification as to whether we are hitting a 32 bit barrior, an instance
> limitation, or both. I am awaiting the answer. How many databases do you
> have on your server? We had between 1700 and 1900 (the number varies) at
> times when the error occured. We are now at 1500, and have not had the
> error in the 2 days since reducing the number of databases...
> EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
> http://www.eggheadcafe.com