[NTLUG:Discuss] Dell Latitude Boot Problems

[Melody & Andrew Dennis]

Hello Everyone,
I've been "lurking" on this list for quite a while, and finally decided to 
join in.

Here's my problem:
I have two Dell Latitude CPI Laptops, one 366MHz PII and one 400MHz PII,
other than the CPU speeds & hard drive sizes, they are configured with exactly 
the same hardware.  My problem is that after installation of Slack 9.2 with 
the default kernel, no special configs or anything else, both computers boot 
just fine the first time.  After that, when I reboot for one reason or 
another, they just freeze at exactly the same point.  If this was an 
incompatibility problem, I can see neither computer booting at all, but it 
only occurs after I have installed, rebooted, worked a little bit, and then 
attempted to boot again.........

I believe the problem lies with the NeoMagic 256 Video cards (kernel message 
output is as follows)

PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 01:00.
nm256: Found card signature in video RAM: 0x3fec00
nm256: Mapping port 1 from 0x3f09a0 - 0x3fec00

At this point, boot progresses no further.  If I start the install process all 
over, everything is fine until that magical second reboot.  I've reflashed 
both bios's to the latest available, yet the problem still remains, although 
some sound config problems I had are now gone.......

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Andrew Dennis