High memory usage on idle ESX host

[ccullingford]

I have 4 new 3.5 host running 3.5.0, 82663 (Update 1). They are Dell R900's with 4x quad core 2.4 GXz Xeons and 128GB of memory. After a base install of ESX virtual center is reporting 66.08 GB used. Running top does not show anything out of the norm. Currently there are no VM's on these host.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Chris

[mcowger]

There is a known problem with hosts over 64GB - call VMware support. There is a hidden option that will fix this. if you search the forum for high memory usage on idle host here on the forum its documented as well.

--Matt

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Take a look at the post by Bradley4681 here - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/128055?tstart=0&start=15.

[lfchin · Accepted solution]

Here is wat i did. Uncheck the option from the virtual center for the advance setting on the esx host, which reflect the vmkernal setting by default.

VMkernel.Boot.force36BitMTRRMask

Please make sure u uncheck the box on this, and reboot your host, and your memory usage on the ESX should be back to normal. This apply to all the esx server which contains more than 64 GB of physical memory.

[lfchin]

Make sure you uncheck the option VMkernel.Boot.force36BitMTRRMask from the advance setting on the vmkernel on ESX host.

[Dudemax]

I have exactly the same issue but on Esx 4.0 host.

The problem is that VMkernel.Boot.force36BitMTRRMask feature seems to be missing.

Verified on a Esx 4.1 and Esxi 4.1 and the option is NOT there too

My next try will be to reinstall a new Esx from scratch

Any idea ?