For the begining try: nodhcp or acpi=off . If you use Live CD, put this in command prompt at the begininig, if Knoppix is on hdd, put this in menu.lst (for Grub) or lilo.conf, for Lilo:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11 root=/dev/hda3 ro ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off xmodule=fbdev nomce quiet knoppix nodhcp acpi=off

Don't forget to execute Lilo in terminal after changing lilo.conf.