Crashing problem on firstboot, FC2 install

[Matt Morgan]

I'm trying to install FC2 on my computer, a white-box with Asus 
motherboard and hyperthreading 2.8Ghz Intel P4. I'm getting fairly 
random crashing upon firstboot ("random" meaning the point at which is 
crashes varies, but it always crashes).

At first I had an ATI Radeon 9200SE (the Windows ME of video cards) in 
this box, but I was afraid it was the problem, so I switched it out for 
an ATI Rage 128 32Mb card and reinstalled. Same problem, basically. The 
problem is, upon firstboot after installation, the system hangs during 
boot. I get as far as the graphical boot, but then at various times the 
system hangs hard (can't ctrl-alt-del, can't ctrl-alt-F1, etc.). If I 
reset the machine and then try to boot again, the result is predictable: 
the system hangs again on "enabling swap space." The only way I can then 
get past that point is to boot into single-user mode, checking the root 
partition on the way, and then reboot after single-user mode comes up. 
However, all that does for me is get me back into the original state 
where I crash randomly during the graphical portion of the boot.

There are a bunch of reports on the web from people who crash on 
"enabling swap space." Many of them have USB issues (I have no USB 
devices installed) and others have X issues. I tried modifying 
anaconda's choice of video driver (using "vesa" instead of the Radeon or 
r128 drivers), but that didn't help either.

I had been running FC1 on this computer very successfully until a few 
days ago. Because I have had trouble with the SMP kernel in FC1, I tried 
booting the non-SMP 2.6 kernel in FC2, but it didn't help. I also tried 
using no acpi and no apm, but that didn't help either.

I have successfully installed Mandrake 10 on this machine (2.6 kernel) 
as well as Xandros Desktop OS 2.0 (2.4 kernel). In both cases I was able 
to boot with the later video card and the r128 driver, so I'm pretty 
sure this is not an X issue. Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Matt