Hi again... I'm still doing nfs tests. With 2.6.15-rc3-mm1, a simple program can bring the system to a halt (as it can with previous kernels). I ran the test in single user mode, and copied the following output from sysrq-m, sysrq-t by hand... sysrq-t: writetest: io_schedule sync_page __wait_on_bit_lock __lock_page filemap_nopage do_no_page __handle_mm_fault error_code rpciod/0: io_schedule_timeout blk_congestion_wait throttle_vm_writeout shrink_zone shrink_caches try_to_free_pages __alloc_pages tcp_sendmsg inet_sendmsg sock_sendmsg kernel_sendmsg sock_no_sendpage xs_tcp_send_request xprt_transmit call_transmit __rpc_execute rpc_async_schedule worker_thread kthread kernel_thread_helper sysrq-m: Mem-Info: DMA per-cpu: cpu 0 hot: high 12 batch 2 used 0 cpu 0 cold: 4 1 0 cpu 1 hot: 12 2 1 cpu 1 cold: 4 1 0 cpu 2 hot: 12 2 0 cpu 2 cold: 4 1 0 cpu 3 hot: 12 2 0 cpu 3 cold: 4 1 0 DMA32 per-cpu: empty Normal per-cpu: cpu 0 hot: high 384 batch 64 used 1 cpu 0 cold: 128 32 0 cpu 1 hot: 384 64 97 cpu 1 cold: 128 32 0 cpu 2 hot: 384 64 63 cpu 2 cold: 128 32 32 cpu 3 hot: 384 64 47 cpu 3 cold: 128 32 0 Highmem per-cpu: cpu 0: hot: high 384 batch 64 used 0 cpu 0: cold: 128 32 0 cpu 1: hot: high 384 batch 64 used 0 cpu 1: cold: 128 32 0 cpu 2: hot: high 384 batch 64 used 0 cpu 2: cold: 128 32 0 cpu 3: hot: high 384 batch 64 used 0 cpu 3: cold: 128 32 0 free pages: 14088kB (6000kB HighMem) Active: 453253 inactive: 43719 dirty: 149725 writeback: 310580 unstable: 0 free: 3502 slab: 14870 mapped: 1230 524149 pages of RAM 294773 pages of HIGHMEM 6137 reserved pages 311956 pages shared 0 pages swap cache 149725 pages dirty 310580 pages writeback 1230 pages mapped 14870 pages slab 16 pages pagetables This is the same test program as before. It simply opens a file O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_LARGEFILE, grows the file by doing a pwrite64 of 1 byte, maps the end of the file with mmap64(PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED) touches all the bytes by doing a memset grows the file some more unmaps, maps the new region, touches memory, .... Once all the free memory on the system is used, no new processes can start, and the system is effectively hung. Only sysrq and vt switching function (unless running X). Any further info I could provide? Any ideas? Patches to try out? thanks, -Kenny Here is the test program again (run as writetest -m ) __________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/