I’m still debugging the problem. However, in the /var/log/messages I found the following events that are occurring at the time of system freeze:

[CODE]
Dec 5 11:58:35 linux-396d avahi-daemon[2305]: Registering new address record for 10.0.0.252 on eth1.IPv4.
Dec 5 11:58:35 linux-396d dhclient: bound to 10.0.0.252 — renewal in 1584 seconds.
Dec 5 11:58:36 linux-396d nm-dispatcher.action: Script ‘/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/autofs’ exited with error status 1.
Dec 5 11:58:36 linux-396d if-up.d/21-dhcpcd-hook-samba: No dhcpcd info nor dhclient leases file found for eth1.
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d kernel: eth1: no IPv6 routers present
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d SuSEfirewall2: Setting up rules from /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2 …
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d SuSEfirewall2: using default zone ‘ext’ for interface eth0
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d SuSEfirewall2: batch committing…
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d SuSEfirewall2: Firewall rules successfully set
Dec 5 11:58:37 linux-396d nm-dispatcher.action: Script ‘/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nfs’ exited with error status 2.
Dec 5 11:58:38 linux-396d nm-dispatcher.action: Script ‘/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/smbfs’ exited with error status 6.
Dec 5 12:03:34 linux-396d syslog-ng[1713]: syslog-ng version 1.6.12 starting
[/CODE]

Apparently the GNOME Network Manager also hangs with this driver.

By the way I did not disable the use of Network Manager. I was able to set up my network connection with GNOME Network Manager. It works fine.