> A month or so ago, I decided to upgrade from a 1.0 to a current
> kernel.  I recompiled config.new and gas as advised, and built a
> kernel with the then current sources.  The kernel failed to boot --
> it wedged sometime during or shortly after the autoconfiguration
> (the last message printed was the probe for the floppy disks).  I
> don't recall now whether it had found all the other devices or not.
> 
> I supped new kernel sources again last night, and tried again with
> similar results.  This time, when the kernel wedges, the pc's
> speaker emits 3 or 4 5 second high pitched sounds, but as before,
> the machines appears locked up.  Again the last message printed was
> the fd probe, but I did notice that all the devices had been found
> so perhaps it is getting right through the device probes and getting
> wedged later.

I have something similar on one of my i386 boxes - it started
happenning after I took the Spider Tarantula S3 graphics board out,
and put in an old Orchid ProDesigned 2S video board.  Upon boot, the
Orchid announces that it has 1M video memory, although I'm not sure
that it does.  It gets to the fd probe, and does that fine, and then
jumps all over the screen with the output - it looks like it thinks
the screen is 40x12, in four different quadrants.  What I've found to
cure it is to get a lot of error messages written all over the screen,
so I log in (blind), and do an "mdir a:" with no floppy in the drive. 
The screen is fine after that, and I can run X on the screen with no
problems.  I had put it down to a funny in the old Orchid board.  I
don't get any messages on the speaker.

The interesting thing about this is the point at which it goes all
screwy - the fd message is displayed exactly 25 lines after the boot
prompt, so it's as if it's when it scrolls for the first time.

I'm not particularly bothered by this - this is just another data
point.

Cheers,
Alistair 
--
Alistair G. Crooks (agc@uts.amdahl.com)			   +44 125 234 6377
Amdahl European HQ, Dogmersfield Park, Hartley Wintney, Hants RG27 8TE, UK.
[These are only my opinions, and certainly not those of Amdahl Corporation]