Cisco ASA5520 stuck at Booting system, please wait…
Table of contents
Booting system error
I have two ASA-5520 firewalls running in an Active/Standby setup. One of them did not start and displayed the following message on the console during boot:
Booting system, please wait...
From my experience, the message Booting system, please wait… can be caused by a faulty memory, and so I was going to check the hardware.
The ASA-5520 has four memory slots, where two of them are occupied and give the system 2GByte of RAM. I removed one of them, booted the ASA5520, and it came up as expected.
To cross-check, I removed the other memory, inserted the one I removed first and booted the ASA5520. Same error: Booting system, please wait…. Therefore I knew the memory I removed first is the faulty one.
Booting with 1 Gybte memory
By booting up with one memory installed (1 GByte instead of 2 Gbyte) the ASA5520 shows a warning that the memory requirements are not met to run with the ASA software I am normally running:
Platform ASA5520
Use BREAK or ESC to interrupt boot.
Use SPACE to begin boot immediately.
Boot interrupted.
Management0/0
Link is UP
MAC Address: hhhh.hhhh.hhhh
Use ? for help.
rommon #0>
*************************************************************************
** **
** *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** **
** **
** ----> Minimum Memory Requirements NOT Met! <---- **
** **
** Installed RAM: 1024 MB **
** Required RAM: 2048 MB **
** Upgrade part#: ASA5520-MEM-2GB= **
** **
** This ASA does not meet the minimum memory requirements needed to **
** run this image. Please install additional memory (part number **
** listed above) or downgrade to ASA version 8.2 or earlier. **
** Continuing to run without a memory upgrade is unsupported, and **
** critical system features will not function properly. **
** **
*************************************************************************
Memory replacement
Because I do not want to downgrade my ASA software, I keep this one running in my Active/Standby setup and ordered a memory replacement, which will hopefully arrive soon.
And if you enjoy some hardware photos, here is one of my ASA-5520’s running as Active/Standby. Enjoy!
