HL2 - 'Fantastic' Mini-Freezes (help)

[EatChildren]

Last night I got our wonderful new PC up and running, and by 2am I finally got HL2 unlocked (Steam + 56k = hell).

Here are my specs:
AMD64 3400+
Gainward 6800GT 256mb
1gb Corsair TwinX DDR (2x512)
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro MBO
Half-Life 2 Collectors Edition + Steam (both completely updated)
Windows XP (no SP1 or SP2)
Latest drivers for MBO and GPU.

My problem? Well, after getting HL2 running at 2am I played till 4am with no problems. Happy times all round.

This morning I got up and turned on the PC in hope of some quite gaming. Steam started in Offline mode (as it should) and shockingly HL2 would freeze every so often.

How would it freeze? Well I would play from 10 seconds to 5 minutes, and then it would freeze for about 5 seconds, then repeat itself.

Later today I decided to update Norton, so Steam was running online. I played through the Hovercraft and Ravenholm levels without a single problem at all.

But now its back to its funny buisness.

Does anybody have any idea what is causing this?
Its not autosaving, as when the game Autosaves I have no problems, and these happen at random occasions in random intervals. Its not a sound problem, as I have updated HL2 and my sound quality is set to Low. That and this isnt a sound problem to begin with.

Im stuck, throw me a bone.

 

[teh_Martin]

My god, sky-high system specs, and only 56k?

As for the freezing issue, every now and then my game froze for a sec or 2, but my system ain't that good.
I wouldn't know why this is happening to you tho..

 

[Flyingbig]

I have hte same graphics card as you but i only have the sound stutter problem, so you can rule out your graphics card causing this problem (unless its broken which is unlikely) so look else where for a solution.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

DUDE!! EatChildren!! You stole my computer!!! Oh wait I'm using it.
But those are my specs TO THE LETTER!

AMD64 3400+ CHECK
Gainward 6800GT 256mb (overclocks nicely doesn't it?) CHECK
1gb Corsair TwinX DDR (2x512) TwinX? dunno. Otherwise, CHECK
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro MBO CHECK
Half-Life 2 Collectors Edition + Steam (both completely updated) CHECK

What are the odds?!?
The question is now who's the bizarro version of who?

Anyway, yeah, I'm having those same problems. Turning down the texture res *seems to* fix it.