I noticed lockups when doing large file transfers in konqueror, as well as heavy system load when compiling...
The first few times I just rebooted X from ssh login.
The last couple, I've waited long enough to see an error from arts that the cpu load was too much for the sound server. Seems like that sound deamon can block other system threads...
just an observation
I think I figured it out... And it's a PITA. First, my old laptop (Thinkpad i1452) doesn't really support ACPI properly. APM has been what I've used on 9.0/9.1, and it's run fine. Second, it seems as though the stock kernel that loads with 9.2 had an ACPI bug. This was patched by SuSE, and it had a note about ACPI not loading/initializing properly which could affect some devices on "old Thinkpads." Third, since the installed kernel was completely unstable (even in runlevel 3) I couldn't even run YOU to grab the update. I could use smbmount to grab the RPMs off my Windows box, but RPM -Uvh kernel* would hard-lock, too. Fourth, I learned about booting off recovery media (on cd) mount my old hda2, chroot to it, and THEN I could run RPM... Fifth, apm=on and acpi=off are now required kernel boot options. So far, it's working well. Guess this is a lesson- When installing and it asks if you want to check for updates, look for stuff that might be required on your "old Thinkpad" :)