Random annoying lockups in Ep.1 and HL2.

[Apocalypse89]

When playing either of the mentioned games, sometimes(maybe once or twice per hour of gameplay) they decide to lock-up for no apparent reason. Occasionally, this would happen right in the middle of a loading scene, but usually it happens in the middle of gameplay. The game would just stop, with any sound that may have been playing at the time looping infinitely. The last frame is stuck on my monitor, ALT+F4 or ALT+TAB do nothing, and the only way to return to desktop is either shutting down hl2.exe by "blindly" navigating the Task Manager, or manually resetting the PC.

These problems have started to hit me since I got Episode One.

I have the latest drivers for my video card, and I've tried verifying the game cache for both HL2 and Ep. 1.

My rig:
3.06 Ghz Pentium 4
1024 MB DDR RAM
Geforce 6200 512MB
Intel D865PERL motherboard

Runs HL2 fine except for this annoyance.

 

[Beerdude26]

Maybe your video card driver resets? Or the game just crashes :|
Try turning off any background applications that might pop up/under and cause it to crash.
Hell, you can remove the internet connection, start Steam in offline mode and turn off everything

 

[Apocalypse89]

Never heard of a video card driver resetting before, and obviously I know that the game is crashing.

I'll try turning off my antivirus, and if that doesn't help I'll try your "turn off everything" suggestion.

Thanks.