I added a lock for ucode-intel and then updated to 20230219 and while 6.1.12 STILL causes the same hardlock - I can boot successfully with 6.1.10 (as it was working before). I do use the nvidia drivers installed 'the hard way' and 6.1.10 is using the iGPU presently, vs. nvidia as it was before 20230216 so I'll stop nvidia_drm from loading and see if 6.1.12 boots ~ though it was never built for that kernel, so it's not the most logical test.