This problem is particularly annoying to me because I had S3 working for a while, and I am completely unable to identify what when wrong.

Here's the problem: If any USB peripherals are plugged into my Dell 300m when it resumes from suspend-to-RAM, it freezes instantly (sometimes before completely drawing the desktop, if at all). If none are plugged in before and after suspend, then I can perform a successful transition. Problem is, if I plug one in after resuming, the machine locks up hard.

My query to you all is this: what could change (BIOS, kernel config, kernel version) that would cause this machine's S3 behavior to go from nearly perfect to having this nasty problem? I've tried all available BIOSes for this machine (A01-A06) as well as different kernel versions (currently using kernel.org 2.6.6), nothing seems to be working. Suggestions are much appreciated because I am reaching the end of my wit here and I don't know what else to do to restore proper S3 behavior.