Hi, During sequential run check out v$px_sessstat/v$px_session views. You might find some info there. Views have 2 columns REQ_DEGREE and DEGREE. First one should list 4 since you've requested it with hint and satisfied degree should be 1, I guess. But to understand why optimizer lowered your degree - as Dave said above review 10053 trace. BTW, how many parallel servers configured on the system ? (parallel_max_servers) --romas On 10/16/07, DBA Deepak <oracle.tutorials@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hi Experts, > > Have a problem related to parallel query execution. I have a setup of > Oracle 10g (10.2.0.3) on solaris 64 bit and on a 16 core CPU system. > > When I execute parallel hint in the query the following happens. > > Does not use PQ processes for the query: > > select /*+ parallel(bt,4) */ from big_table bt; > > Does use PQ processes for the query: > select /*+ parallel(bt,16) */ from big_table bt; > Please help me in understanding why this happens. > > > -- > Regards, > > Deepak > Oracle DBA >