At last the problem causing the early boot hang triggered by hwclock that happens on some compaq and HP laptops has been diagnosed and a workaround patch is available. Look here for details : http://lwn.net/Articles/263418/ see my name there ? My name is in the linux kernel :)
The LKML thread where the problem was discussed has to be the lengthiest and most intricate I ever followed.
This goes along nicely with the kernel 2.6.24 release which has a lot of improvements specially the b43 driver