Slackware :: Lockup - Dell 2350 - Keyboard Stops Working - No Response From Mouse Clicks ?

I'm installing slack 13.0 in a Dell 2350 for a friend. once installed, it works ok for a while then within some somewhat random period of time, just plain locks up. the keyboard stops working, the mouse cursor still moves, but there is no response from mouse clicks. i was ssh'ed into the machine one of these times to see if i could read the logs during a lockup. the machine stopped responding to the ssh session as well (actually i had an instance of mc running at the time, and the machine still responded to it. when i exited mc, i was stuck in console never-never land). the logs show absolutely nothing. /etc/messages keeps showing MARK long after the lockup. all other logs are not updated since boot. this machine has an i810 chipset, is there a driver issue here?