> Root could use the limit -h to prevent this. Limit -h sets the upper 
> limit for the limits. 

Yes, but this doesn't fix the problem.  You can also set the baud rate on
your serial ports to 50 bps to prevent overruns, instead of doing something
to speed up the interrupt processing.

I believe something is broken if you can crash the system this way.. :-/

  -jm