We analyse the decay properties of the solution semigroup S(t) generated by the linear integrodifferential equation
where the operator A is strictly positive self-adjoint with A
–1 not necessarily compact. The asymptotic stability of S(t) is investigated in terms of the dependence of the parameter γ ∈ ℝ. In particular, we show that S(t) is not exponentially stable when γ ≠ 1.