7.0 vs. 6.1.4 boot time behaviour

[steve%prd.co.uk@localhost (Steve Blinkhorn)]

When I boot 6.1.4 on a 2-- or 4-core machine:

1. The console stays in 80x25 character mode up to and beyond login.

2. top(1) shows individual performance data for each of the CPUs

But when I boot GENERIC 7.0

1. The console goes immediately to a very small, barely readable
character size, and after login seems not to respond at all (I can
access the machine over the network though).

2. top(1) shows performance data for a single CPU

The boot.cfg file does not change.

Has top(1) changed? Is the stock 7.0 GENERIC kernel not SMP enabled?
And how do I get the console to behave sensibly?

-- 
Steve Blinkhorn <steve%prd.co.uk@localhost>