I've been having this problem for a while now. I've got a Dell Latitude LS notebook with a built in NeoMagic 256AV sound card. I'm using Slackware 10.1 with kernel 2.6.11.7 (although the problem also occured in 2.4.29).

(output of lspci)
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 03)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1211
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 20)
01:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio] (rev 20)

When the system starts up, about 75% of the time it locks up on the "starting hotplug" stage. I've added some statements to the hotplug, and it locks up right after it starts 01:00.1- which is the sound card. I can turn off PCI hotplugging- but then the sound card doesn't work at all.
So usually, when I start my system, I have to restart it 4+ times to get it to work. Is there any way I could fix this? I don't really care about PCI hotplugging, but I'd like it if the sound card worked. Any response is appreciated.

hi there and welcome to lq,

quick and dirty solution:
in one of these boots that works give it a
write all the sound related modules by hand somewhere and load them by yourself later..
do no forget to blacklist them
regards
slackie1000

Excellent, thanks