It seems that 2.6.26-2.6.27 have a regression that hangs my machine during startup of the kernel, that has something to do with HPET. I can stop it by using "hpet=disable". It seems other people have trouble with other chipsets, too. 2.6.28 seems to be fine. Maybe it's the same bug? Though my machine is x86_64, it might be a valid speculation. Cheers Dan