Hi Robert,

> > You may want to try newer kernel (from 4.2 -> 2.6.9-22.0.1.EL)
> > .. there is some chance that the problem is ACPI related ..
> > (you could also try acpi=off at boot time .. but this will
> > completely disable power management .. including speedstep
> > handling)
> 
> Thanks...I will grab the newer kernel and try that.  I think that 
> you are right, since ALL of the other kernels from other 
> distributions have had no trouble at boot time with the SpeedStep 
> turned on.  My partner and I were looking forward to the 4.2 version 
> of Fermi when it comes out (soon) which will have the newer kernel 
> by proxy, but I'll try it in 4.1 first to make sure.
> 
> About ACPI...I have NOT tried that yet, but assumed that it would be 
> a good possibility that turning that off at boot-time would solve 
> this problem, but of course, as you mention, it creates a bunch of 
> other ones.
> 
> The DAG repository is full of nice stuff...the first time I turned 
> it on in Yum, I was overwhelmed with how much has been put into that 
> repository, especially just about any PERL module that anyone would need!
> 
> Thanks again, folks.

If you're really after pre-packaged perl modules that you just can't find
anywhere else, you can also try Dries repo, which has heaps more than any other.

BTW on one of my Intel Hyperthreading servers, keeping APCI on when booting
would always cause a boot hang, turning it off would run it through nicely.
This happened with various kernels/dists I tried using on it (FC3, SL3, SL4)
and although I reported it in Red Hat's bugzilla, they tried a couple of
workarounds and patched but they didn't solve the problem.

I just run it with APCI off and it works, I'm not too concerned about the
features I'm losing since the machine is stable anyway.

Michael.