PIX CPU Usage get 99%

[paltel]

In normal cases; The PIX ( 515 ) CPU usage is about 10%, but temporary it jumps to 99% with less than one minute and get inaccessible; where the failover PIX get active until it’s CPU also get saturated and come back inactive.

I separated all the interfaces except the inside one; but the problem still. When I monitored the traffic that go to inside interface; it’s clean of worms.

Any one can help?

[ciannaco]

have you considered a faulty timing circuit , that might cause the timing and responses to become altered

This definatly sounds like a hardware issue

[paltel]

Dear ciannaco;

May you eplain this more; and how I can check if there is a faulty timing circuit?

Thanks in advance.

[ciannaco]

It would be my pleasure , the Timing circuit is used to keep bit timings straight within the equipment , if this circuit is faulty information would be transmitted and/or out of sync. This can cause excessive retransmits due to timeout values and traffic on the link , what you are describing is an extreme form of this problem. You normally see this on routers as opposed to firewalls. heres the listing of command refrences

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/110/pix_command_ref.shtml

show-tech support is the easiest way , look for a high number of interface resets , well into the hundreds or higher on two or more interfaces

a show cpu usage and a show processes would assist me greatly in further diagnostig troubleshooting efforts

[paltel]

Thank you very much for your valuable information