Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series

[troseberry]

Will the Cisco Catalyst 4500 E Series chassis operate using different wattage power supplies? For example, if the chassis is operating with one 4200 watt power supply, can I add a 2800 watt power supply to the same chassis?

[Collin Clark]

Maybe. The power supplies can run congruently, both power supplies are need to power the switch and the line cards. Or they can run in redundant mode where one power supply backs up the other in case of failure. In this mode you most certainly want the same size otherwise you wont have enough power for the switch and/or line cards.

[Alvaro Garcia]

Hi,

The power supplies on a 4500 must have the same wattage; otherwise, the switch will automatically turn off one of them and log and error message.

Hope it helps.

[Collin Clark]

Alvaro-

Is that on the 4500's only or is that the case on all other chassis based switches?

[glen.grant]

I definetly know that is true on the 4500's , have seen this when on dual input supplies when 1 power interface fails it shuts the PS right off (err-disable)and will just run the other supply.

[jbrenesj]

It's true for the 4500 but on the 6500 you can have PS of different wattage.

This is how it works:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6500/hardware/Chassis_Installation/Cat6500/0apwsply.html#wp1030022