My bad, i for some reason assumed you were using a laptop when mention of ACPI/APM came up
(Perhaps i should read more carefully)
I do not think i have seen any machine that did not handle any of the BSD's, perhaps there is something wrong that that machine? Which linux distro's have you had on it recently that are working properly?
Have you tried PCBSD or DragonFly? (if you don't mind d/ling and have disc's to spare), probably a better question would be; When was the last time it was running any operating system properly? and what operating system was it?