__alloc_pages: 3-order allocation failed. for 2.4.1-pre9

From: Yann Dupont (Yann.Dupont@IPv6.univ-nantes.fr)
Date: Tue Jan 23 2001 - 10:59:35 EST

I had thoses errors messages on 2.4.1-pre9 :

__alloc_pages: 2-order allocation failed.
__alloc_pages: 3-order allocation failed.
__alloc_pages: 3-order allocation failed.
(ad nauseum)

I was doing backups on scsi streamers using tar ;

The files are on a md0 array, file system is reiserfs;

the machine has 128MB RAM, Swap is 512MB and was pratically unused ;

the tar then failed miserably -But the system was OK after that;
Please note that this was after an hour or so of backup...
And that I was doing 2 backups in the same time ...

The machine is an old pentium pro 200,
the scsi cards are Buslogic BT958 ( I have 3 of them ; 3x9 Gb on 1, 3x9b
on 2, 2 scsi tape on 3)

I remember sawing that those errors were due to improperly written
drivers . Is the buslogic driver or tape driver are to blame here ?? Or
maybe this is a vm balancing issue ?

Side note : Free gives this :

admin@dumbo:~$ free
             total used free shared buffers
cached
Mem: 126592 122856 3736 0 100968
8960
-/+ buffers/cache: 12928 113664
Swap: 522104 2352 519752

As we can expect, buffers are large, maybe a little too much ?

Yann Dupont. 

-- 
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