VIA C3 - cant boot CD

[abc at ai1.anchorage.mtaonline.net]

i have an ML6000 (no floppy) and have downloaded
the 4.11 mini-iso image, and burned it to a CD-RW.

CPU: VIA C3 Nehemiah (666.55-MHz 686-class CPU)

after rebooting, the CD is found, and a boot
attempt is made.  within 5 seconds, the kernel
locks up after about 3 seconds of the
kernel data+234238 text+23432 stuff and the
/-\|/-\ twirling prompt, leaving a "/" as the
first character on the next line.

the ISO is the exact size it should be, and
i could "gzip -t mfsroot.gz" in the /boot
directory without error - so i guess it's
a good image.  i am running 4.10 currently,
and have no boot problems off the hard drive.

any ideas as to what could cause this lock-up
at boot time?  i thought the ISO's are made with
the mkisofs --no-emul-boot, yet the CD is recognized
as a 2.88 floppy, and boots 0:fd(0,a)/boot/loader.
i never booted off CD's before, and don't know
what i should expect exactly.

thanks.