We had this problem as well with a variety of 845 and 865 chipset boards, which are the only ones giving us any sort of problems. The weird thing is the box is hung, but not locked when it displays INIT 2.78, as if you plug in a usb device you can see the box "detect" it with some lines of text. No idea if this is usb-port releated or not, just wanted to share that. Will try the noapic command, as fooling with several bios options has had no luck for us.
I have tried the options as posted, but always the same thing! I have also tried to disable any not needed functions of the borad (sound, 1394..) - no way Always hang at the INIT.....
So now i will test a other computer to enjoy the new features