[ale] Lockups

[David Corbin]

I have Dell Dimesnion 4600 that dual boots as WIndows XP and Gentoo Linux 
(desktop), running Kernel 2.6.7.  It seems to suffer "random lockups", most 
often during the 'startup process".  The system is entirely frozen an 
unresponsive -- no mouse, not keyboard input.  no switching virtual screens.  
And the disk-activity light is 'on solid'.  OTOH, usually  if I can get 
booted, I can run for hours, or a day without any problems.  Unfortunately, 
it runs pretty well under WIndows, considering the OS.  FWIW, the two OSes 
are on different physical drives.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to diagnose the root cause.

Thanks
David