I think my original was caught in the spam filter; apologies if this is 
duplicated.

Compiling with the attached configuration, Linux kernels 2.6.36 and
2.6.37-rc1 both hang in early boot on a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop which
is temporarily in my possession.  Playing with the configuration, I find
that completely disabling ACPI restores normal boot.  Even if all
sub-options are disabled under ACPI, or if other power management
options are changed, it seems that the mere act of enabling ACPI is the
culprit.

Using the "debug" boot option, I receive "early console in setup code"
followed by a hang, rather than just hanging quietly.
No combination of boot options such as acpi=off, noapic, nolapic,
pci=noacpi, pci=off, etc. helps (not that I expected it to.)

Because this is an early boot hang, I don't know what else to do to
narrow this down, but I will have the laptop for another day or two.  I
would like to attempt a BIOS update as well (currently at version A10)
but I won't do so until we've had a chance to figure out what's going on.

I have also attached my ver_linux output for the BUILD system, in case
it is helpful.

Jody Bruchon