If it helps I'm experiencing a *very* similar problem with all Atom N270 based company netbooks (Lenovo S10e) with openSUSE 11.2 and Kernel 2.6.31, as well as openSUSE 11.1 and Kernel 2.6.27. Putting load on the NIC works fine until I start rsync. Literally everything else allows me to put load on it - ftp, scp, downloading large files via HTTP, copying via NFS or SMB, etc. But as soon as I start rsync it locks up. It doesn't even start to transfer anything - the NIC instantly dies and more often than not takes the entire system down with it. Every now and then instead of a full lockup I only get a dead NIC. Killing the rsync process hard (-9) and restarting the network often helps. I realize that this is a very different software environment but I was about to try CentOS on that baby next. I'll try the noapic option when I get back to my office but it's interesting how so different environments seem to produce similar errors. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's probably not a CentOS-specific issue we're dealing with here. Martin -- Rieke Computersysteme GmbH Hellerholz 5 D-82061 Neuried Email: martin at rhm.de