[c-nsp] Question on CPU utilization

[Justin M. Streiner]

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008, Steven Pfister wrote:

> We've got several remote sites that have a 3500XL switch running 
> 12.0(5)WC17 as the core of their network. All of them are showing cpu 
> utilization around 35-55% pretty much constantly.
>
> - is this too high? Shouldn't it be more like <= 10% most of the time?
> - how can I troubleshoot this? I've seen some steps on cisco.com, but they don't seem to indicate where the problem might be. I didn't see anything under the bug toolkit for this IOS that sounds like the problem I'm having, but should I try upgrading anyway?

Is something broken or degraded because of what you're seeing in terms of 
CPU utilization?  Are there any odd messages in the logs, or SNMP traps, 
if you're receiving them?  Is there something else, like a published bug 
or security vulnerability that would prompt an upgrade?  If not, and the 
users aren't reporting any problems, you can probably leave the switches 
alone.

jms