diff --git a/internal/config/config.go b/internal/config/config.go
index e6b7359..9ad5d45 100644
--- a/internal/config/config.go
+++ b/internal/config/config.go
@@ -182,6 +182,15 @@ func (c Config) HistoryCapacity() int {
 	return capacity
 }
 
+// maxHistoryCapacity bounds HistoryCapacity(). NewRingBuffer allocates its
+// capacity eagerly for each of the 7 scalar history series, so an
+// unreasonably large window/interval ratio (e.g. a config typo like
+// history_window_minutes: 525600 with poll_interval_seconds: 0.05) would
+// otherwise allocate on the order of gigabytes at startup and OOM a Pi. One
+// million points per series (~7M points, well under 1 GiB total) is far more
+// than any real dashboard use case needs.
+const maxHistoryCapacity = 1_000_000
+
 // validLogLevels are the log levels newLogger understands; any other value
 // silently falls back to info, so we reject it here instead.
 var validLogLevels = map[string]bool{
@@ -208,6 +217,15 @@ func (c Config) Validate() error {
 	if c.HistoryWindowMinutes <= 0 {
 		return fmt.Errorf("history_window_minutes must be > 0 (got %v)", c.HistoryWindowMinutes)
 	}
+	// Compare the ratio in float64 before any int conversion: converting an
+	// out-of-range float64 to int is implementation-specific in Go and
+	// differs by architecture (e.g. amd64 wraps to math.MinInt64, arm64
+	// saturates to math.MaxInt64), so calling HistoryCapacity() first and
+	// comparing the resulting int could let an extreme ratio slip past this
+	// check on some platforms but not others.
+	if ratio := c.HistoryWindowMinutes * 60 / c.PollIntervalSeconds; ratio > maxHistoryCapacity {
+		return fmt.Errorf("history_window_minutes (%v) / poll_interval_seconds (%v) implies %v history points per series, exceeding the %d limit; increase poll_interval_seconds or reduce history_window_minutes", c.HistoryWindowMinutes, c.PollIntervalSeconds, ratio, maxHistoryCapacity)
+	}
 	if c.HistoryPersistEnabled && c.DataDir == "" {
 		return fmt.Errorf("data_dir must not be empty when history_persist_enabled is true")
 	}
diff --git a/internal/config/config_test.go b/internal/config/config_test.go
index 335757a..05e9fa2 100644
--- a/internal/config/config_test.go
+++ b/internal/config/config_test.go
@@ -232,6 +232,19 @@ func TestValidate_RejectsBadValues(t *testing.T) {
 		{"disk warn above crit", func(c *Config) { c.Thresholds.DiskWarnPercent = 99 }},
 		{"swap warn above crit", func(c *Config) { c.Thresholds.SwapWarnPercent = 99 }},
 		{"memory warn above crit", func(c *Config) { c.Thresholds.MemoryWarnPercent = 99 }},
+		{"history capacity exceeds sanity cap", func(c *Config) {
+			c.HistoryWindowMinutes = 525600
+			c.PollIntervalSeconds = 0.05
+		}},
+		{"history capacity ratio overflows int64", func(c *Config) {
+			// Regression test: converting an out-of-range float64 to int is
+			// implementation-specific in Go and differs by architecture
+			// (amd64 wraps to a negative number, arm64 saturates to
+			// math.MaxInt64), so the cap must be checked on the float64
+			// ratio, not on HistoryCapacity()'s post-conversion int.
+			c.HistoryWindowMinutes = 1e300
+			c.PollIntervalSeconds = 1
+		}},
 		{"negative alerts for_seconds", func(c *Config) { c.Alerts.ForSeconds = -1 }},
 		{"negative notify max retries", func(c *Config) { c.Alerts.NotifyMaxRetries = -1 }},
 		{"negative notify backoff", func(c *Config) { c.Alerts.NotifyRetryBackoffSeconds = -1 }},
@@ -255,6 +268,23 @@ func TestValidate_RejectsBadValues(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+func TestValidate_HistoryCapacityBoundary(t *testing.T) {
+	cfg := Default()
+	// With poll_interval_seconds: 60, HistoryCapacity() equals
+	// history_window_minutes exactly, giving clean integer boundaries.
+	cfg.PollIntervalSeconds = 60
+
+	cfg.HistoryWindowMinutes = maxHistoryCapacity // exactly at the cap
+	if err := cfg.Validate(); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("Validate() rejected history capacity exactly at the cap: %v", err)
+	}
+
+	cfg.HistoryWindowMinutes = maxHistoryCapacity + 1 // one point over
+	if err := cfg.Validate(); err == nil {
+		t.Fatal("Validate() accepted history capacity one point over the cap")
+	}
+}
+
 func TestValidate_AcceptsValidEdgeCases(t *testing.T) {
 	cfg := Default()
 	// Warn equal to crit and a zero stale threshold are both allowed.