Frozen machine after install of 2.6.8 smp kernel

[F Da Costa]

Hi,

Tonight i completely reinstalled (3rd time, lucky?) Ubuntu on a P4 (HT) with an
Ati Radeon 9600 and 500M.
Knoppix detects the HT and uses the smp kernel accordingly. So i know Linux can
work on the box, utilising the HT.

During the install all goes fine, no worries there.
1st task run apt-get update (just in case).

On the clean system I used synaptic to get the linux-686-smp package and all
seemed to go as expected.
Restart, the login screen appears and ... nothing.
Keyboard is dead and the mouse won't budge either. Like good old MS i had to
turn the machine of and restart it :-(

In the bios HT is enabled and (as mentioned earlier) Knoppix does work (but not
as clean on the hd install).

Did anybody experience the same and if so did you get it resolved?
I'm liking what i but i would also like to use the HT possibilities offered by
the P4.

tia
Fermin DCG