Scott Colson wrote:

> What
>was really strange is that some LEDs I have hooked up to I/O lines for status
>started blinking slowly and then extinguished.  I reset the circuit again and
>it operated correctly except for the 9600 baud comm line.

Hmmm,  sounds vaguely like a problem I had with a prototype recently:  I added
a bargraph display,  and didn't realize that the display driver was turning all
the
LEDs on momentarily during reset.  Everything worked fine,  because the
display was a "moving dot",  the normal current drain was well within
the limits of even the little TeenyO-92 voltage regulator I was using,  and
the turn-on surge was just barely "in bounds".

Until I added a couple more chips:  then the current surge at start-up caused
enough of a voltage drop that the display driver never came out of reset,  all
the LEDs *stayed* on,  and Vcc wound up around 3.5V.  Unfortunately,  I
wasn't using 3.3V parts...

See if your power supply is being overtaxed:  maybe Vcc isn't rising fast
enough for everybody to "snap to attention" and reset cleanly.

Ran