Total memory doesn't really tell the story. You need to look at the "Largest Fragment" listing.
As an example (and *not* reality), let's say the router says you have 32M of available memory total, the Largest Fragment is 500K.
When the router tries to run a process that requires more than 500K, you'll get an "Out of Memory" error (or probably a "MALLOC XXXXXX" error - MALLOC is programmer-speak for "Memory Allocation").
When possible, reload the router (reboot) ... and as soon as possible, start an ASCII capture on your terminal emulator and start doing some "Show Memory Summary (sh mem sum) ... keep your eye on the Largest Fragment listing (the top ~3-4 lines of output)and see if it drops rapidly. You may have a corrupt IOS or other failure that doesn't return the memory back into the pool properly (a memory leak).
It may also be helpful to track some "show process and / or sh proc cpu" to see if there is / what is the process that's sucking up your ram.
BTW: I checked the software advidsor: 12.4(3e) is a defarral.
Table Of Affected Software And Replacement Solution
OS Type
Software Affected IOS 12.4(3e)all Platforms
Software Solution Version(s) 12.4(3f) all Platforms
Software(s) Availability (mm/dd/yyyy)
08/21/2006
12.4(3f) is the minimum recommended fix.
Good Luck
Scott
