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To: "Brian N. Handy" <handy@sag.space.lockheed.com>
cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Run out of swap 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 10 Oct 1997 15:41:51 MST."
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Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 18:41:19 +0930
From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
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> 
> I'm having problems with my machine hanging when I run it up against the
> stops in terms of memory usage.

Is it actually hitting the wall swapwise when it dies, or is it a case 
of "sometimes I run out of swap, sometimes it dies"?

> Now every so often I start up a too-ambitious job, run out of memory and
> it crashes.  I get the predictable "job kilt" line which tells me I ran
> out of memory and I was dutifully kicked out.  HOWEVER, now what I'm
> seeing every so often is that it doesn't kick me out, but instead the
> machine just hangs.  The clock in the corne of my screen stops, the mouse
> stops, the num lock light doesn't go off and off.  Fixed and dialated.
> Once this happens, it seems like I have to hit the reset button.  

You say "now what I'm seeing" - did you have similar problems when you 
were running with 64M?

> It could be these last two are too big for the smallish about of swap I
> have available.  Anyway, are there any suggestions out there?  I'm not
> sure how to figure out where I'm hanging, but I seem to be able to repeat
> the problem fairly consistently.  I'd rather the job crashed instead of
> just running into a wall.

Wind up a killer job, and then swap to the text console.  Keep an eye 
out for any console messages.  Particularly, do you have DDB in the 
kernel?

mike