I went back in Precise kernels [1] all the way back to 3.0.0-12.20. There seem to be no easy answers: now even 3.0.0-12.20 crashes with -intel.

I think this either means that the hardware’s broken, or that the issue has been lurking in kernels all the way back to (at least) 3.0.0-12.20, and was only triggered by some early Precise updates (during the time window I described above). As I said, it (definitely) wasn’t there when I filed Bug #903831 on 2011-12-13 (because I couldn’t have gotten far enough to trigger that bug with this on the way).

I’ll attach shots of current results with the early Precise kernels below just in case there’s anything useful there.

I think I’ll try ruling out hardware failure with Oneiric, either with the live disc (if that uses -intel) or by reinstalling.

* [1] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+source/linux/