Wenchi Liao <wliao@midway.uchicago.edu> writes:

> this is done at a fair pace (no more than 10 seconds) The kernel then
> detects the hard drive at wd0, finds the geometry and size of drive,
> and freezes for about 5 minutes. Then a line about npx0 at a port using
> exception 16 and the rest of the boot process (about 10 seconds again).
> This happens if I boot off of the installed kernel as well.
> 
> What is going on?

	Check the power saving settings in the BIOS. Another Dell
laptop I encountered booted *very* slowly when it was in certain power
saving modes. Start by disabling them completely and see if it helps
at all.

	- Nathan