2.5.60-i386 freezes after decompress on Athlon

[Eric Buddington]

2.5.60, compiled for i386 but running on an Athlon, darn near
everything as modules.

I get the standard "Uncompressing linux... booting" on boot, then a
hard freeze; no keyboard LED response, no SysRq reboot.

I tried with acpi=off, same result.

I initially assumed that console traffic was directed elsewhere, but
VGA console is compiled in and vga=6 specified on the GRUB boot line.

2.4.20 works fine on this system, 2.5.58 at least boots.

I have no idea what to try next.

-Eric