Computer freezes with certain programs

[Exile]

Every time I try to run certain programs, notably Thief - the dark project, my computer freezes, including the mouse pointer, and is totally unresponsive. The Thief documentation suggests this may be caused by sound card drivers that are incompatable with directX 6. I don't know what sound card I have (believe me, I've tried, but it's a "no-name" one), all I know is that it has an A3D Vortex 1 chipset, so I use the referance drivers from aureal. Anyone have any idea what the problem may be?

[cobain1crt]

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Under "product updates" there is a section for drivers, does it always lock up in the same place, I repleced all my drivers because Carmageddon 2 froze up, after a while I found that my Windows setup was wierd, i reformated and re-installed, still instable(it is windoze after all) but better.