diff --git a/Lib/SimpleXMLRPCServer.py b/Lib/SimpleXMLRPCServer.py
index ae06bda354b..f9999f6d8c7 100644
--- a/Lib/SimpleXMLRPCServer.py
+++ b/Lib/SimpleXMLRPCServer.py
@@ -422,8 +422,19 @@ class SimpleXMLRPCRequestHandler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
         """
 
         try:
-            # get arguments
-            data = self.rfile.read(int(self.headers["content-length"]))
+            # Get arguments by reading body of request. 
+            # We read this in chunks to avoid straining 
+            # socket.read(); around the 10 or 15Mb mark, some platforms
+            # begin to have problems (bug #792570).
+            max_chunk_size = 10*1024*1024
+            size_remaining = int(self.headers["content-length"])
+            L = []
+            while size_remaining:
+                chunk_size = min(size_remaining, max_chunk_size)
+                L.append(self.rfile.read(chunk_size))
+                size_remaining -= len(L[-1])
+            data = ''.join(L)
+
             # In previous versions of SimpleXMLRPCServer, _dispatch
             # could be overridden in this class, instead of in
             # SimpleXMLRPCDispatcher. To maintain backwards compatibility,
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index c140d7c1fe6..bf682a22646 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -451,6 +451,9 @@ Library
 - Bug #1222790: in SimpleXMLRPCServer, set the reuse-address and close-on-exec 
   flags on the HTTP listening socket.
 
+- Bug #792570: SimpleXMLRPCServer had problems if the request grew too large.
+  Fixed by reading the HTTP body in chunks instead of one big socket.read().
+
 - Bug #1110478: Revert os.environ.update to do putenv again.
 
 - Bug #1103844: fix distutils.install.dump_dirs() with negated options.