The common denominator appears to be a bug in cs IO port probing. It reports that I/O port range 0x800-0x80f is available when it is actually taken by some device, so cardmgr freezes on start.
The solution is simple:
Open /etc/pcmcia/config.opts in an editor and change the first line:
This worked on my Acer 6291 laptop. It now boots without having to use the boot option "nopcmcia".include ... 0x800-0x8ff... to
include ... 0x810-0x8ff.
Those of you that reported having to use "nopcmcia" to boot, please try this fix. Both the Ubuntu and Toshiba support sites recommended this fix so it shouldn't do any harm.
Please report your success or failure in this thread
If this solves the PCMCIA freeze problem, Barry can include the fix in Puppy 3.00