8.0 Beta-5 Linux PSQL Endless loop

I have two identical Dell Dimension 8400's running the exact same
versions of Gentoo Linux, running the same build for PG 8.0 Beta 5.
One box works fine. The other, no matter what I do, eventually runs
into what appears to be an infinite loop trying to connect to the
postmaster. It virtually brings the whole system down, and looks like
it is allocating a lot of memory as well. I have tried to run strace
on the psql process, and all I can see before the machine becomes
unrepsonsive is read() over and over.

Ultimtelty, the psql process ends with "LOG: unexpected EOF on client
connection"

I've completely cleaned out all old PG installations, binaries, and
data. I've never seen this before w/ PG. My system is as follows:

gcc version 3.3.4 20040623 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.4-r1, ssp-3.3.2-2, pie-8.7.6)

Linux 2.6.6 #21 SMP Mon Nov 1 14:08:10 CST 2004 i686 Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU
3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

I can provide shell access to this machine if it helps.

-- Mike