Yup, it's definitely fedora's fault, not my hardware.

[Jon Savage]

> Now if only I can figure out how to get back to a working system with
> something other than Fedora Core 3.
Well there's always windows ;).
Seriously- either there is something awry with how 2.6X kernel
interacts w/ your hardware or some aspect of your system is... err...
hosed.
--BTW have you tried any other 2.6X distro on that HW? 
or... there is indeed a fedora specific issue.
If it were me I'd boot something w/ 2.6.X (knoppix can do that) and
see if the issues persisted,
Comparing 2.4X kernel to 2.6X is *very* much an apples to oranges sort
of thing, both are round but share little else in common. Bugzilla
as/if applicable of course. IMHO if there were a distinct trend
towards the issues you are seeing this list would be *full* of
'mysystem'sgonetohell(tm)"  and is slower than snot since I installed
FC3... I may be missing something but don't think I've seen that on
this list since FC3's release. Other issues sure- this one not much.
FYI- I've been running FC3 TX & FC3 on some pretty marginal hardware
(only 128 MB RAM w/ GUI etc), and have been surpirised @ how 'snappy'
FC3 seems.
-- 
Bests,
Jon