NT Reports Out of Resources Error When Memory is Available

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

SYMPTOMS

Windows NT or a Windows NT service reports an error in the event log, stating that the system is out of resources. According to Performance Monitor and Windows NT Diagnostics, however, there is plenty of RAM available. For example, if a large number of connections are made to SQL Server, SQL Server will report an error 1450 - Insufficient System Resources, even though this system has plenty of RAM available.

CAUSE

The Windows NT kernel is running out of paged-pool memory. When Windows NT boots up, it calculates the amount of paged-pool memory available to the kernel based on the amount of physical RAM in the system. The maximum this value can be is 192 MB. If the kernel allocates all of its allotted paged- pool memory, it will not be able to perform many tasks and will instead return a STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES (0xC000009A).

MORE INFORMATION

This is by design. Windows NT currently uses 32-bit addressing for memory. This only allows for 4 GB of addressable RAM, which must be divided into various sections of virtual memory. The kernel only has 2GB to divide up and, in this distribution of addresses, paged-pool memory is allocated a maximum of 192 MB. This is a restriction of the 32-bit addressing.

REFERENCES

For additional information on paged-pool memory, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q126402
TITLE : PagedPoolSize and NonPagedPoolSize Values in Windows NT 3.5

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords : kbnetwork ntnetserv NTSrvWkst
Version : WINDOWS:2000; winnt:3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
Issue type :