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Is 86% RAM Usage Too High for Comfort?

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HarryMuscle

Senior Member
I just finished configuring my new RT-AX86S router which comes with 512MB RAM. Nothing too fancy, just using the various GUI based functionality like an OpenVPN Server, AiProtection, AiMesh, a couple guest networks, and QoS. I haven't connected the rest of my network to it yet (ie: just one client so far) and I noticed that after a reboot the RAM usage sits at around 86% with about 70MB free. Is this too high for comfort? Is 70MB enough to handle about 20 clients (wired and wireless) and a 500Mbit internet connection? Or will I run out of RAM if those clients end up opening up too many connections? Should I be upgrading this to an RT-AX86U router with 1GB RAM, even though I don't need the extra CPU cores, or the 2.5Gb port?

Thanks
Harry
 
I just finished configuring my new RT-AX86S router which comes with 512MB RAM. Nothing too fancy, just using the various GUI based functionality like an OpenVPN Server, AiProtection, AiMesh, a couple guest networks, and QoS. I haven't connected the rest of my network to it yet (ie: just one client so far) and I noticed that after a reboot the RAM usage sits at around 86% with about 70MB free. Is this too high for comfort? Is 70MB enough to handle about 20 clients (wired and wireless) and a 500Mbit internet connection? Or will I run out of RAM if those clients end up opening up too many connections? Should I be upgrading this to an RT-AX86U router with 1GB RAM, even though I don't need the extra CPU cores, or the 2.5Gb port?

Thanks
Harry
Adding a USB device could push up the RAM usage. Buy as someone stated, RAM is to be used!
 
Adding a USB device could push up the RAM usage. Buy as someone stated, RAM is to be used!
No plan on doing that. I know NAT uses RAM to keep track of the various connections and one of the things I was worries about is whether 20 clients with connections to the internet would be enough to push the router to the breaking point and crash it.
 
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Similar situation with RT-AC86U with 512MB RAM:

1672112257781.png


The router is running properly. No user actions needed.
 
No plan on doing that. I know NAT uses RAM to keep track of the various connections and one of the things I was worries about is whether 20 clients with connections to the internet would be enough to push the router to the breaking point and crash it.
RT-AX92U running fine with 18 clients or even couple more at times all connected either through wired or wireless either directly or via access points and one mesh node.

I think most computing devices use all the RAM you give them irrespective of the actual load and free it as required in most of the cases.

temp.png
 
RT-AX92U running fine with 18 clients or even couple more at times all connected either through wired or wireless either directly or via access points and one mesh node.

I think most computing devices use all the RAM you give them irrespective of the actual load and free it as required in most of the cases.

View attachment 46668
Agreed. When I first saw the following I was worried
Screenshot_2022-12-27-10-47-27-68_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643~2.jpg

But the beauty of Merlin firmware and scMerlin showed me this
Screenshot_2022-12-27-10-46-42-42_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643~2.jpg

On any system cache usage will be reduced first, if/as needed. If this didn't happen we'd all be in trouble.
 
You have USB storage attached. I can crash your router causing OOM condition without touching it.
Never had a problem there, none of the figures change by more than 1-2MB since day 1. Never seen more than 2MB swap usage either.
We'll seen when the uptime gets up there though - realistic I am.
 
One day you'll see it if you believe your router is a good cheap NAS replacement with Torrents downloader.
 
I am storing a few essential files on it while my NAS is rebuilt, but certainly don't consider it as a file or media server. Main use is transmission for ubuntu and raspi distros. And entware of course.
 
No need to run everything available in AMTM just because it's available. Some of the scripts on the list destroy user configurations with no notice, others may impact user experience or alter GUI behavior, some may simply do nothing in specific configurations, some are IPv4 only, etc. No need to stress limited router resources or your ISP line for no reason.
 
More FUD.
 
No need to run everything available in AMTM just because it's available. Some of the scripts on the list destroy user configurations with no notice, others may impact user experience or alter GUI behavior, some may simply do nothing in specific configurations, some are IPv4 only, etc. No need to stress limited router resources or your ISP line for no reason.
Then you may as well run Stock.

I don’t get why you berate and basically down-size people that run Merlin and the available scripts - surely that’s the point of running it?

If they have issues I’m sure they’ll post here and the actual helpful people on these forums will respond with answers to get things working again.

The answers not being “why are you using it” or “don’t use it and the problem goes away”.
 
Agreed. When I first saw the following I was worried
View attachment 46677
But the beauty of Merlin firmware and scMerlin showed me this
View attachment 46678
On any system cache usage will be reduced first, if/as needed. If this didn't happen we'd all be in trouble.

Yeah im on 97% as well, mostly cache, no worries. SCMerlin ftw.
 
See: RT-AX88U the Samba server software gives some random read errors

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/r...software-gives-some-random-read-errors.83855/

Please note I am running stock firmware…

Not sure if this is related to memory management issues. But I’m impressed with the RT-AX88U Samba speeds but I learned back in the Win98 days due to a motherboard with “minor” DMA issues causing file errors that small errors have a way of becoming big headaches. So for me any file error (that I can find in less than a day) makes the storage device unusable.

For that reason I have unplugged my USB drives from the router and the memory concerns also go away. But I am hoping someday that a firmware upgrade will fix this.

I also detected that unshielded USB3.x drive at the router increase the 2.4G noise floor. This becomes apparent only at the extremes of coverage. I solved this with all metal cased shielded USB drives.
 

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