MS SQL & XEON WITH HYPER THREADING

[Matt_134]

We have a ProLiant ML350 G3 with dual processors.
Installed: MSSQL Enterprise Edition on W2K.
Due to HyperThreading, Win2k sees four processors instead of two.

When under load MSSQL causes ONE of the processor graphs to show more activity than the others in Task Manager -> Performance tab.

What our concern is:

Is MSSQL running at its peak processor performance, even though it "appears" that it is only using half a processor?

Secondly,Would it be appropriate to disable HyperThreading?

Thanks for all the replies,

[Sunil Jerath · Accepted solution]

Hello Matt,
a. Have you configured SQL to make use of all processors? (Start menu-Enterprise Manager-right click on your server-properties-CPU)

b. As per Intel, W2K does not (yet) support Hyperthreading, i.e. W2K does not know that the extra processors are not "real". Intel recommends disabling Hyperthreading when using W2K. So far, only Win XP supports Hyperthreading:

http://www.intel.com/support/platform/ht/os.htm

I hope this helps,

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Matt,
Please try the following link from Microsoft as well:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/docs/hyperthreading.doc
Regards,