diff -r a88de71c4e3a -r d06a2d7fcd5b src/share/vm/memory/space.hpp
--- a/src/share/vm/memory/space.hpp	Fri Nov 18 12:52:27 2011 -0500
+++ b/src/share/vm/memory/space.hpp	Mon Nov 21 07:47:34 2011 +0100
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 1997, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 1997, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
  * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
  *
  * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
@@ -533,7 +533,8 @@
    * by the MarkSweepAlwaysCompactCount parameter.                           \
    */                                                                        \
   int invocations = SharedHeap::heap()->perm_gen()->stat_record()->invocations;\
-  bool skip_dead = ((invocations % MarkSweepAlwaysCompactCount) != 0);       \
+  bool skip_dead = (MarkSweepAlwaysCompactCount < 1)                         \
+    ||((invocations % MarkSweepAlwaysCompactCount) != 0);                    \
                                                                              \
   size_t allowed_deadspace = 0;                                              \
   if (skip_dead) {                                                           \