AMD64 System Becomes Unresponsive During Software RAID Synchronization

[Eric Sorton <esorton@gmail.com>]

Hi All,

I recently purchased an AMD64 system and I am attempting to install
Debian on it.  Key hardware components include:

   * CPU: AMD Sempron 64 2600+
   * Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-K8U Socket 754 ULi M1689 ATX
   * Memory: 512MB
   * Hard Disk 1: Samsung SP1614C
   * Hard Disk 2: Seagate ST3160827AS

To get the ULi controller recognized, I have to boot with a 2.6.12
kernel.  I am using the sarge netinstaller provided by Len Sorensen
and discussed previously on this group.

The system boots the installer fine.  I have successfully installed a
base system to a single hard drive.  I would like to setup software
RAID, but the system becomes unresponsive after the RAID is configured
during the drive synchronization process.

I installed a base system and then, after the installation was
complete, activated a single, mirrored software raid using mdadm. 
After the synchronization process has started, I can use the system
normally.  I can cat /proc/mdstat and see how far it has progressed. 
Within a couple of minutes, when I execute cat /proc/mdstat, the
system doesn't return any data.  I cannot stop the cat with either
control-C or control-Z.  I can no longer log into the system either on
the console or through ssh.  I can switch between virtual consoles. 
The machine still reponds to pings.  There are no errors on the
console.

This leaves me with a couple of questions ...

Is anyone successfully using software RAID on an AMD64 system?
Has anyone installed Linux on this MB?  With or without SATA?
Does anyone have any suggestions on what might be wrong or possible workarounds?

Eric