[ale] Any clues on a Dell Inspiron 5150 lockup?

[Byron A Jeff]

One of my students here at Clayton State just bought a whizbang Dell Inspiron
5150 laptop. He has the unenviable task of trying to get it to work in my
Intro to Unix class where I'm using Knoppix 3.2 as the primary student
vehicle. 

Unfortunately it locks up tight as a drum during the kernel boot with the
tailing messages of:

-------------
CPU speed is 3056.5628 MHz
Host bus clock speed is 0.000 MHz
cpu: 0, clocks: 0, slice: 0
-------------

If you have any interest here's a knoppix.net thread on the subject:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4606#21296

In that thread someone points out that RH9 does boot. But I've taken a lot
of care to minimize the impact on student machines and would prefer not to
have this student have to repartition and install.

Does anyone have any insight? I can compile a new kernel if I can figure out
what twiddly bits need to be configured.

BAJ