Hi simon_w,
What release are you using?
On my sid box, an apt-get install worked great. That was all I had to do.
I googled (P4P800 "kernel panic" debian) and found many folks have had the same problem. The link below seems to have found a short term fix.
http://groups.google.com/group/lucky...e20b17968349f5
"Try booting with kernel parameter pnpbios=off, it's a problem with the
pnp implementation of the intel 8(6?/7)5 chipset. (a bios upgrade to P18
didn't help for me, I don't know if recent changes in 2.6.3-... address
this issue)"
Good luck and let us know if this works for the next person,
Steve