Well heres my first attempt at kernel debugging the problem posted yesterday. I some magic sysrq-<P> on the 486 after the Donald Becker eth0 message displayed. I had to hand write the EIP trace and then enter it into ksysmoops. Don't know if it will help but I'll try recompiling the kernel without any APM stuff and see what happens.
 
sysrq<T>

                        free                        sibling
  task             PC    stack   pid father child younger older
swapper   -1 R current   6248     1      0     5
   sig: 0 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 : X
kflushed   2 S c0233fb0  7084     2      1            3
   sig: 0 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 : X
kupdate    3 S c0231fc8  7108     3      1            4      2
   sig: 0 0000000000000000 ffffffffffffffff : X
kpiod      4 S 00000f00     0     4      1            5      3
   sig: 0 0000000000000000 ffffffffffffffff : X
kswapd     5 S c009dfd4  3120     5      1                   4
   sig: 0 0000000000000000 ffffffffffffffff : X

sysrq<P>

ksymoops 0.7c on i686 2.2.16-Eds2nd.  Options used
     -v nfsroot-486-02-vmlinux (specified)
     -K (specified)
     -L (specified)
     -O (specified)
     -m nfsroot-486-02-System.map (specified)

EIP: 0010:[<c0106942>] EFLAGS: 00000286
Using defaults from ksymoops -t elf32-i386 -a i386
EAX: 00000000 EBX: 00000003 ECX: c0007f60 EDX: 00000003
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f60 DS: 0018 ES: 0018
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad8c>] EFLAGS: 00000212
EAX: 00003636 EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0010:[<c01062d0>] EFLAGS: 00000296
EAX: c0007f08 EBX: c0007f26 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000000
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0018 ES: 0018
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000bf66>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: 0000530b EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000000
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ada3>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 000036f3 EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000bf85>] EFLAGS: 00000212
EAX: 00000000 EBX: 00000016 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad92>] EFLAGS: 00000212
EAX: 00003636 EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000bfb6>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: 0000530b EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ada7>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 000036fe EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad9f>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 0000fe36 EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000bfp6>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: 0000530b EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad9b>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 0000fe36 EBX: 00000050 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000c114>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: 00000016 EBX: 00000003 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0000 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000bf85>] EFLAGS: 00000212
EAX: 00000000 EBX: 00000016 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad9b>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 0000fe36 EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ada7>] EFLAGS: 00000282
EAX: 000036fe EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<0000ad8e>] EFLAGS: 00000212
EAX: 00003636 EBX: 00000000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000050
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c01ce564 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0058 ES: 0000
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<c0106320>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: c0007f0c EBX: c0007f14 ECX: c0007f14 EDX: 00000000
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c0007508 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0018 ES: 0018
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<c0106301>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: c0007f0c EBX: c0007f14 ECX: c0007f14 EDX: 00000000
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c0007508 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0018 ES: 0018
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
EIP: 0050:[<c01062c0>] EFLAGS: 00000202
EAX: c0007f0c EBX: c0007f14 ECX: c0007f14 EDX: 00000000
ESI: c0106b00 EDI: c0007508 EBP: c0007f10 DS: 0018 ES: 0018
CR0: 8005003b CR2: c0000000 CR3: 00101000
Warning (Oops_read): Code line not seen, dumping what data is available

>>EIP; c0106942 <get_event+12/50>   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad8c Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; c01062d0 <apm_bios_call+10/80>   <=====
>>EIP; 0000bf66 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ada3 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000bf85 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad92 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000bfb6 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ada7 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad9f Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad9b Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000c114 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000bf85 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad9b Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ada7 Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; 0000ad8e Before first symbol   <=====
>>EIP; c0106320 <apm_bios_call+60/80>   <=====
>>EIP; c0106301 <apm_bios_call+41/80>   <=====
>>EIP; c01062c0 <apm_bios_call+0/80>   <=====


1 warning issued.  Results may not be reliable.