Well mate, new discovery!I I get a new dmesg trace if I remove my PCMCIA 2 ports USB 2.0 from my laptop. I'll show you below the last part as it's the change:

(As before)
...
Via 686a audio driver 1.9.1
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: ADS99(Unknown)
via82cxxx: board #1 at 0x1000, IRQ 5
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
Yenta IRQ list 0088, PCI irq11
Socket status: 30000006
uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1
uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1800, IRQ 9
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 84k freed
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,3), internal journal
Adding Swap: 457812k swap-space (priority -1)
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,2), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
eth0: Setting 100mbps full-duplex based on auto-negotiated partner ability 45e1.
hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-2, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x5e3/0x702) is not claimed by any active driver.
cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!
Assertion failed! buffer != NULL,via82cxxx_audio.c,via_dsp_write,line=2308


Thanks once more!!

Okay, not claimed by any active driver makes me think less of an acpi issue and more the card is just so spanking new...

I took a look at the kernel changelogs for 2.4.21 and 2.4.22-pre7. In 21 there are four ehci updates, and one of them is a full on sync to the 2.5.x tree, which means with that you're more or less current. In 2.4.22-pre7 there are some others... unfortunately none of these are very specific, its just headed with "ehci updates" or somesuch. You could stroll through the lkml for what got updated with what, but that's probably more headache then its worth. Also, with a new acpi in the newer kernels, you may be better off with that too as you have a pile of acpi warnings at the top of dmesg, but if you don't run it, I'm pretty certain your machine would melt.

Feel up to a new kernel?

Cheers,

Finegan

Well Finegan, I've just downloaded the latest stable kernel version (2.4.21) and its stable ACPI patch. So, have look around here tomorrow, because I don't think I have time to install a new kernel today since I have to continue working on my project. So, don't worry that I'll let you know what it's going on after this update.

Cheers mate!