Catalyst 3524 PWR high memory utilization

[abrahamj]

We have both XL PWR and XL versions of the Catalyst 3524 on our network. We have stacks of 3524 PWR switches supporting VoIP at one of our campuses. These switches have been in place for 2 plus years with no complaint. These stacks dual home gig to 6509 switches.

A couple of weeks ago, we started getting insufficient free memory alarms from two of the 3524 PWR's supporting voice. Show proc mem revealed the switches were averaging in the mid 80% memory utilization. The remainder of the 3524's supporting voice are running in the 80's also. We upgraded IOS to Version 12.0(5)WC9. Yesterday, two of the switches began restarting at irregular intervals after memory utilization complaints. We replaced them with 3550 PWR's and their memory utilization has been in the 8-9% range.

Un powered 3524's are running in the 70% memory utilization range, which is still high. Does anybody out there have experience with this? Do 3524's typically run these high mem levels?

Thanks.

[Tsasbrink]

Yes, 80% memory usage is normal for these switches because they are just layer 2 switches and have no need for other than layer 2 functions memory witch does not have mutch features unlike layer 3 switches like the 3550 you mentioned witch does routing and layer 4 functions.

do you happen to use many vlans with spanning tree instances ? you could try to free up memory by buffertuning larger than ethernet frames to 0.

[abrahamj]

3 VLANs--voice, data and management. Thanks for your help.

[Tsasbrink]

you might consider doing a show mem if you just booted and a show mem when it is complaining of memory issues to see where the memory went.

3 vlan's should not cause any problem.