[PLUG] Debugging looping reboots

["K.S. Bhaskar" <bhaskar@bhaskars.com>]

My son disregarded my advice (he's at that age when dads don't know
much) and bought a new high end laptop (Extreme Notebooks Raptor 560x;
I advised him to go with System76).  The hardware is so leading edge
that the only Linuxes I have been able to get to recognize all the
hardware are Fedora Core 9 & 10 and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.  The catch
now is that I can't get it to run 64-bit Linux (32-bits runs fine).

With any 64-bit Linux installed on hard drive, and any 64-bit Ubuntu
CD, when it boots, it comes up, starts booting, loads the kernel
successfully, and then spews a bunch of text too fast for me to read
and then goes into a hard reboot.  It will do this for ever.  There is
nothing meaningful in /var/log/* after this process (when I look with
a 32-bit live CD).

With 64-bit Fedora, I can run a live CD, but when I install it to the
hard drive, it has the same problem.

Since my reading and reflexes are not as fast as the computer, any
suggestions on how to troubleshoot this?  Is there any way to boot
step by step so that I can see what is causing it to croak?
Otherwise, it will be forced to run a 32-bit Linux.

Thank you very much, in advance.

Regards
-- Bhaskar
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