ax6b+, celeron 300, mandrake 9.1 help please

new to the list. am looking for help. please let me know if i'm
doing anything improper here.

using an older slot1 machine and have been having mandrake 9
problems. am wondering if anyone else has heard of anything
like this. system behavior is same with 'slotket' mounted
celeron or straight slot1 p3. details follow.

system is an ax6b+ slot1 mobo w/celeron 300 in it oc'ed to
450. other system tried is abit slot1 mobo w/celeron 566 - behaves same
as ax6b+.

win98se loads, works fine on the system
mandrake 8.2 loads, works fine on the system
mandrake 9.0, 9.1 both have trouble installing and,once installed
freeze when trying to open a cd
red hat 9 installs but also freezes after install when trying to open
a cd

odd thing is that mandrake 9.1 loads, works fine on a newer amd
system. otherwise i'd think there might be some settings somewhere
having to do with the cd mount or something that need tweaking

what systems have you been able to load mandrake onto? anybody
running systems this old with current linux distros, mandrake or others?

thanks,
BabaG