Need For Speed : Most Wanted : Black Edition

[philgill]

Hi guys and Gals,
I have a mysterious problem and i was wondering if anyone can help me with it.
First off here is my specs:

ASUS A8N32-SLi Deluxe Gaming Board,
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU
"GB DDR400 RAM
1x76GB 10,00RPM Western Digital Raptor System Drive,
3x250GB 7,200RPM WD Data Drives (All SATA)
2x NVIDIA GForce EN6600 GT 128MB PCI Express GPU's
Dual 19' AVidav Monitors (Dual Screen)
QTEC 650w Triple Fan 24Pin Power Unit
ThermalTake Silver Armour Case with 3 additional 120mm Fans

Right, everything else works just fine on this computer, including loads of games, new and old, programs systerm etc.
I have had problems with the Raptor drive but have had a replacement sent and installed ok
I'm trying to run Need For Speed : Most Wanted : Black Edition.
I can play just fine for anything from 15 minutes to 1 1/2 hours then the sound loops, the display goes blank and the PC shuts off.
I have re-installed windows, defragged the drives (took days), re-installed drivers, swapped hardware, played in 2000, 98, NT modes, turned off SLI (turned it back on again) just about everything i can think of.
I have loads of other games but it's really frustrating me that i can't play this without it crashing the system.

Please, Please help me.
All suggestions other the ones above are welcomed.
Thanks
Phil

PS I work with computers all day, every day, so i'm no nube..

 

[Mousemonkey]

What version are you running?

 

[philgill]

it's v1.3. I can't find any more patches or updates for the game.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I think that's the most up to date you can get as far the game goes, it's the same version that I'm running and it cured the problems I was having ie lockups, lagging stutters and crashing back to desktop, have you tried removing one of your graphic cards and changing the graphic driver back to an earlier one?, I,m using this one :-http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_84.21.html but I'm only running a single 7900GT although this driver does appear to support Sli it might do the trick, other than that it might be your audio drivers throwing a wobbly but unlikely. HTH

 

[philgill]

Yeh i've tried everything like that. Changed Graphics cards, audio and video drivers. nothing seems to work but i do have a suspicion its to do with the sound. played with it quite a bit but no good. May have to just try and work around it.
Thanks for the suggestions though
Phil