I have one weird of an issue, and I have no idea what to make of it!

I have a PowerMac 9600 here which won't load the kernel properly if I
don't put my OrangeMicro Firewire/USB combo PCI card in a slot (any
pci slot does the trick).

When it's in, the 9600 successfully boots up. When it's not, it stops
loading the kernel right after the line:

start=3D0x10000

That line is right before the copyright notice.

It happens with both the GENERIC kernel, and my own custom kernel
(which does not have FW/USB) for that matter.

Any clues? I've tried putting other PCI cards (NICs, USB cards,
soundcards), and only this particular one seems to do the trick.

I don't get it. I just don't!


Any gurus here have a clue? :)

Here are the detailed specs of the machine :

- PowerMac 9600/233 with a PowerLogix 1GHz PPC750GX G3 (running at
500mhz, as PLL settings are not supported :( , 1MB L2 cache 1:1)
- Motherboard has the R31 transistor (left of RAM slot A1) cut off
(which is the only true way to disable the soldered 512K lvl2 cache)
- 1024MB RAM (128MB chips in slot A3,A4,A5,A6,B3,B4,B5,B6)
- Voodoo3 2000 PCI in PCI slot A1
- 3Com 3C905C-TXM in PCI slot B1
- 3Com 3C905C-TXM in PCI slot C1
- 3Com 3C905C-TXM in PCI slot D2
- OrangeMicro Firewire/USB combo in PCI slot E2 (THE PCI CARD!)
- Acard 6280M v2.16 in PCI SLOT F2.
- 250GB Seagate 7200.8 as a single master drive.


Take care,

Francis