smp 13xx & 1400 kernels with hung processes

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

i was hoping that the 1400 smp kernel might break the bad luck i've had
with all the 13xx smp kernels where processes starting hanging and
eventually the whole machine locks up and has to be rebooted.

the machine is a dell poweredge 2400 with two 1ghz processors and 1gbyte
of memory ... that was originally shipped with redhat 7.0 installed and
worked fine with smp kernels up until 13xx.

the 1400 smp kernel can hang after initial boot but during KDE
initializing (and require rebooting) ... or sometimes it will get thru
KDE initializing and run for 5-10 minutes before hung processes and
requiring rebooting.

note that the 1400 non-smp (single processor) kernel (and prior non-smp
13xx kernels) run fine on the machine w/o process hanging and requiring
rebooting.