booting on laptop freezes

I was planning on playing with 5.0, but I can't get it to boot.  

I'm booting the mini-install CD (both -CURRENT as of a few days ago
and 5.0-RELEASE), and it gets as far as 
 pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
 pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
 agp0: <Intel 82443BX (440BX) host to PCI bridge> mem 0-0x3ffffff at device 0.0 on pci
and it locks up there for good.

It *did* boot OK when I boot the floppies and tried an FTP install,
but I ran into a different problem (not managing to initialize the
network card), but I broke my network card and am trying to work from
the CD for the time being.

The hardware is an HP Omnibook XE2, which is running FreeBSD-STABLE
just fine.

Any hints on what I ought to be looking at, and what documentation
I may have missed?

Be well.
        Lowell Gilbert