If any of those below help you, please do not forget to inform about this or add your hardware to the list below.
NMI interrupts
Some hardware doesn't handle NMI interrupts correctly. If you machine Oopses on the boot, try boot it with nmi_watchdog=0
At least this hardware is known to be faulty/have problems with it:
- HP DL140G3 (OpenVZ Bug #514)
APIC problems
Some nvidia chipsets are known to have buggy APIC. In this case user can experience different strange problems like crashes/hangs on boot, or peripheral device problems (like non-working ethernet adapter)
Try boot your kernel with 'noapic' option.
- Tyan S5372 motherboard and e1000 adapters (http://forum.openvz.org/index.php?t=msg&th=2213&start=0&)