Okay, he got a lock with the serial console up.

There were no messages displayed on the serial port at lockup time. The serial port was working because he could do "n" and "p" and they worked. And then it put up the usual "DHCP Discover" messages, then it locked.

Also note that he put the disk indicator icon up and it was stuck on with the gray line in the center of the icon at lockup time.

Probably not related, but when he boots up, it reports his hard disk multiple times. Is this normal?:

Probing primary interface...
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: FUJITSU MHM2100AT, 9590MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63