Half Life 2 stops loading

[baglador]

It usually happens the second or third time it has to load a level. And no, it's not taking a long time to load, it's NOT LOADING. the hard drive LED is inactive, and it normally only takes a maximum of 20 seconds to load anyway. Specs:

eMachines T-3092
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.1 GHZ
1 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XL AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Settings are all on high with AA set to 4 and AF set to 8
The game plays very smoothly, so I know my system can handle it. Any suggestions?

 

[BrimStone04]

whenever im having any problems with my a game from STEAM, i validate my steam files and it has always taken care of it.
http://steampowered.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=282

 

[baglador]

yeah, I tried that, didn't work.