On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:00:02 +0200 (MEST), peter <peter dot k at gmx dot at> wrote:
> hi,
> 
> did a fresh install of m0n0 1.11 (ok, no install, just booting from cd),
> with 3 brand new 3com 3c905cx nics on a PII 233 system, soyo board. disabled
> as much as possible in bios, changed graphics adapter (from agp to pci),
> changed pci ports for nics so no irq sharing was in place, just tried
> everything...
> 

You sure nothing was trying to share IRQ's?  Try going to /exec.php
and typing in dmesg and looking for irq lines throughout.  The only
time I've ever seen FreeBSD freeze up solid was because of IRQ sharing
or hardware problems.

Otherwise I'd try hardware diagnostics.  Not sure if Compaq has
something specific to their systems, but there are several good memory
and CPU tests on the Ultimate Boot CD (which is also a very nice free
tool to carry around, if you guys haven't heard of it). 
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

-Chris