Total kernel freeze under 2.6.1

[Neil Macvicar <blackmogu@vfemail.net>]

I mailled before on this problem, but received no replies (!). anyways, a 
recap of the problem is: When I leave my computer running and doing whatever, 
if I come back to it after ~ 1 hour (any shorter lengths of time and the 
freeze doesn't occur) and either move the mouse or type on the keyboard, the 
entire system will freeze. I can tell that it hasn't frozen up to this point 
as if I am in X, the clock is still ticking etc, or if I am in console mode, 
and compiling somthing, then text is whizzing by, or HDD is active.

Now, I've done a further bit of investigation, and tried pinging the box 
instead of keyboard/mouse input, and the ping will cause the box to freeze 
also.

Note that this freeze happens _no matter what_ is running. The result is the 
same in console mode, as well as X, with modules loaded, or without any 
modules loaded.

Whilst under 2.4.x, this problem never manifested itself.

My system consists of the following:

PII 450MHz CPU
Intel 440BX MoBo
WinTV PCI card
Nvidia GeForce 2 AGP card (moduled driver)
Ens1371 PCI audio card 
Promise PCI IDE controller
Linksys Wireless USB adapter (moduled driver)

My enabled parts of .config:

CONFIG_X86=y
CONFIG_MMU=y
CONFIG_UID16=y
CONFIG_GENERIC_ISA_DMA=y
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL=y
CONFIG_BROKEN=y
CONFIG_BROKEN_ON_SMP=y
CONFIG_SWAP=y
CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y
CONFIG_SYSCTL=y
CONFIG_LOG_BUF_SHIFT=14
CONFIG_IKCONFIG=y
CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC=y
CONFIG_KALLSYMS=y
CONFIG_FUTEX=y
CONFIG_EPOLL=y
CONFIG_IOSCHED_NOOP=y
CONFIG_IOSCHED_AS=y
CONFIG_IOSCHED_DEADLINE=y
CONFIG_MODULES=y
CONFIG_MODULE_UNLOAD=y
CONFIG_OBSOLETE_MODPARM=y
CONFIG_MODVERSIONS=y
CONFIG_KMOD=y
CONFIG_X86_PC=y
CONFIG_MPENTIUMII=y
CONFIG_X86_CMPXCHG=y
CONFIG_X86_XADD=y
CONFIG_X86_L1_CACHE_SHIFT=5
CONFIG_RWSEM_XCHGADD_ALGORITHM=y
CONFIG_X86_WP_WORKS_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_INVLPG=y
CONFIG_X86_BSWAP=y
CONFIG_X86_POPAD_OK=y
CONFIG_X86_GOOD_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_USERCOPY=y
CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
CONFIG_PREEMPT=y
CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC=y
CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
CONFIG_X86_MCE=y
CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM=y
CONFIG_MTRR=y
CONFIG_HAVE_DEC_LOCK=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_PCI_GOANY=y
CONFIG_PCI_BIOS=y
CONFIG_PCI_DIRECT=y
CONFIG_PCI_NAMES=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y
CONFIG_PARPORT=m
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=m
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_CML1=m
CONFIG_PNP=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP=m
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM_SIZE=8192
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD=y
CONFIG_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y
CONFIG_IDEDISK_MULTI_MODE=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDECD=y
CONFIG_IDE_TASKFILE_IO=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y
CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ADMA=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_OLD=y
CONFIG_PDC202XX_BURST=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_MD=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_DM=y
CONFIG_DM_IOCTL_V4=y
CONFIG_IEEE1394=y
CONFIG_IEEE1394_OHCI1394=y
CONFIG_NET=y
CONFIG_PACKET=y
CONFIG_UNIX=y
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_IPTABLES=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_LIMIT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_IPRANGE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MAC=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_PKTTYPE=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MARK=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MULTIPORT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TOS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_RECENT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_ECN=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_DSCP=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_AH_ESP=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_LENGTH=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TTL=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TCPMSS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_OWNER=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_FILTER=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_REJECT=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_LOG=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_ULOG=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TCPMSS=m
CONFIG_IP_NF_ARPTABLES=m
CONFIG_IPV6_SCTP__=y
CONFIG_NETDEVICES=y
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_MII=y
CONFIG_NET_PCI=y
CONFIG_8139TOO=y
CONFIG_NET_RADIO=y
CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS=y
CONFIG_INPUT=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_PSAUX=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_X=1024
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV_SCREEN_Y=768
CONFIG_SOUND_GAMEPORT=y
CONFIG_SERIO=y
CONFIG_SERIO_I8042=y
CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBOARD=y
CONFIG_KEYBOARD_ATKBD=y
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSE=y
CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2=y
CONFIG_VT=y
CONFIG_VT_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_HW_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_8250=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_NR_UARTS=4
CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE=y
CONFIG_UNIX98_PTYS=y
CONFIG_UNIX98_PTY_COUNT=256
CONFIG_PRINTER=m
CONFIG_I2C=y
CONFIG_I2C_ALGOBIT=y
CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_INTEL=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_BT848=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_TUNER=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_BUF=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_BTCX=y
CONFIG_FB=y
CONFIG_FB_VESA=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_PCI_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FONT_8x8=y
CONFIG_FONT_8x16=y
CONFIG_LOGO=y
CONFIG_LOGO_LINUX_CLUT224=y
CONFIG_SOUND=y
CONFIG_SND=y
CONFIG_SND_ENS1371=y
CONFIG_SND_INTEL8X0=y
CONFIG_USB=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS=y
CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=y
CONFIG_USB_SCANNER=m
CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
CONFIG_REISERFS_FS=y
CONFIG_REISERFS_PROC_INFO=y
CONFIG_ISO9660_FS=y
CONFIG_JOLIET=y
CONFIG_UDF_FS=y
CONFIG_FAT_FS=m
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=m
CONFIG_VFAT_FS=m
CONFIG_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_PROC_KCORE=y
CONFIG_DEVFS_FS=y
CONFIG_DEVFS_MOUNT=y
CONFIG_DEVPTS_FS=y
CONFIG_RAMFS=y
CONFIG_NFS_FS=m
CONFIG_NFS_V3=y
CONFIG_NFS_V4=y
CONFIG_NFSD=m
CONFIG_NFSD_V3=y
CONFIG_NFSD_V4=y
CONFIG_LOCKD=m
CONFIG_LOCKD_V4=y
CONFIG_EXPORTFS=m
CONFIG_SUNRPC=m
CONFIG_SMB_FS=m
CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION=y
CONFIG_NLS=y
CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT="iso8859-1"
CONFIG_NLS_CODEPAGE_437=y
CONFIG_NLS_ISO8859_1=y
CONFIG_X86_EXTRA_IRQS=y
CONFIG_X86_FIND_SMP_CONFIG=y
CONFIG_X86_MPPARSE=y
CONFIG_SECURITY=y
CONFIG_SECURITY_CAPABILITIES=y
CONFIG_CRC32=y
CONFIG_X86_BIOS_REBOOT=y
CONFIG_PC=y