System hangs during installation or boot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v3 when memory is greater than 4GB - IBM IntelliStation A Pro (Type 6224)

Resolving The Problem

RETAIN tip: H182036

During the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3, the system will hang while partitioning the hard drives. If the operating system was already installed, and you added memory to have more than 4GB of RAM, then the system will hang during boot.

• The system may be any model of the IBM IntelliStation A Pro (type 6224)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3 for AMD64 is affected
  
  Note: This does not imply that the network operating system will work under all combinations of hardware and software. Please see the IBM ServerProven compatibility page for more information.

RHEL 3 Update 2 is required to resolve this problem. If you are installing your system, use Update 2 to install your system.

If you must remain on RHEL 3 Update 1, you can pass mem=4095M at the boot prompt to limit the amount of RAM that RHEL 3 sees.
 
If you are performing an installation, in the "boot" prompt, type the following: linux mem=4095M
 
If you have added additional memory after installation, perform the following steps:

1. At the GRUB menu, press the "e" key to edit a command.
2. Using the down arrow key, highlight the second line that begins with the following, press the "e" key to edit that line:  
   kernel /vmlinuz
3. At the end of the line, type the following and then press the Enter key: linux mem=4095M
4. Press the "b" key to boot the kernel.

Doing this limits your system to under 4GB of RAM while your system is booted, but will allow you to use your SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drives.

This is a limitation of RHEL 3 Update 1.