LinuxQuestions.org - Dell Latitude CPI Random Lockup On Boot

Hey Everyone,
It's been a while since I've posted, but that should be soon remedied as I now back to working somewhat normal hours.

Here's the problem:
I have two Dell Latitude CPI's (one 366, one 400) that both have the same randomly occuring problem.

This only occurs after I do a warm reboot (ctrl + alt + delete) which has to occur at least once every 24 hours on my network in order to use the wireless PCMCIA cards (it's a weird security setting, I know).

Anyway, during boot, shortly after getting a DHCP ack, I get the following output.

Code:

PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 01:00.1

nm256: Found card signature in video RAM: 0x3fec00

nm256: Mapping port 1 from 0x3f09a0 - 0x3fec00

At this point, nothing happens, no hard drive activity, no flashing caps-lock, num-lock and scroll-lock to indicate kernel panic, (and I have left one of them sitting like this overnight, just to see what would happen, and still, the next morning, same message, no progress)
The distro is Slack 9.1, with the default kernel (2.4.22)
Also, if I do a shutdown, and then restart cold, this doesn't happen.......
and, once it happens, that's it, I can never progress past this point without reinstalling the kernel....... I thought I was fairly competent at this stuff, but then I encountered these two laptops. Any help is appreciated.
thanks
Smee