Installing V7 software on a Cisco PIX 506E

18/02/2008 by admin in Cisco, Hardware | Leave a comment

I had read all of the junk from Cisco saying the PIX 506E would only run up to version 6.3 of the PIX operating system. I didn’t believe them and wanted to test this for myself.

After checking the memory requirements for version 7 I knew it was going to be tight but I was quietly confident that it could be done. My 506E had 8MB of flash and 32MB of RAM. This was nowhere near enough. The PIX stores the software image and the PDM image in flash and 32MB of RAM would run version 7 but it would be nowhere near enough for it to run well.

Hacking the Processor Fan on a Cisco PIX 506E

18/02/2008 by admin in Cisco, Hardware, Software | Leave a comment

I purchased a cheap PIX 506E that had a noisy processor fan and no power block. I had seen a spare power block lying around at work and I knew a noisy fan would be cheap and easy to fix.