[link|http://lwn.net/Articles/104179/|LWN]:

Overcommitting memory and fearing the OOM killer are not necessary parts of the Linux experience, however. Simply setting the sysctl parameter vm/overcommit_memory to 2 turns off the overcommit behavior and keeps the OOM killer forever at bay. Most modern systems should have enough disk space to provide an ample swap file for most situations. Rather than trying to keep pet processes from being killed when overcommitted memory runs out, it might be easier just to avoid the situation altogether.


Without having your system slowly die underneath you, you might be able to find out what process is causing the problem.

[link|http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/11/30/linux-out-of-memory.html|O'Reilly] has more details on the parameters and their impact. (See page 2, especially.)

HTH a bit. Good luck.

Cheers,
Scott.