Abnormally low CPU useage

[outofservice]

My cpu useage is running at an abnormally low rate. It rarely peaks above 27% although I cant discover the reason why... any ideas?

I have 4 cpu (1996 MHz Intel) server running SQL 2K SP3 on Win 2K V5.0 SP3 operating system.

Memory set to dynamically configure and the database on average has up to 221 processes running (ave 201 users).

The buffer & procedure cache averages between 95-100%.

The database does not seem to be experiencing any abnormal locking problems either.

Regards,

Lauryn Bradley
SQL Server DBA

 

[TomKane]

What makes you think it's abnormal?

 

[outofservice]

It seems too low ... I would expect it to spike or something?

There are more reads than writes from the database and a copy process runs every 5minutes to write all records to another server (not DTS). It doesnt exceed 27% during this either. Id heard that low usage can be more of a problem than high usage. Is this correct?

Lauryn Bradley
SQL Server DBA

 

[Corran007]

Since you have a quad, its already doing very well and 200 users is not that many. Honestly if your not having problems, i wouldnt worry. Since you are seeing a spike at all, it means its working. The processeors are ususally idol most the time, cept when needing to do work. But if you want to see, try changing the max number of processors that sql server uses. ill assume it is set to handle 4 right now. try setting it to 3. see if you get more of a spike. I beleive you have to restart sql server when you change this setting. Be forwarned that it will proably take longer for some things.