System lockup when running on VPN

Greetings

Running 2.6.25.6-55 kernel with Cisco VPN Client 4.0.8 [patched a bit for various changes among kernels]

When connected to my vpn network I get a system lockup which manifests itself as not being able to do anything (move mouse/keyboard/sysrq) and two blinking blue lights, the lock with an A and the lock with the down arrow.  The harddrive isn't moving either during this period.

It happens only when I am running in house software that is a GUI for users to access a hdf5 Mule endpoint via Edex/Mule ESB client connections to the JMS queue on the remote server.

Anyway - that aside, and Gnu/Linux asied ... this is a problem only on the Inspiron 1420 with an Intel 3956 a/b/g/n card ... I do not have the issue on a gen3 XPS-M1710  running all identical software.

I also do not get this problem if I open a virtual machine and go through it to access the data...only when the host OS machine is connected to VPN and accessing the data does it freeze.

There is nothing in the system logs, and with kernel dump and oops enabled nothing either .. definitely sounds like a hardware lockup, but the box is about 2 months old and this isn't happening on the xps-m1710.

Any hints or suggestions are greatly appreciated.