Help?

[Kevin]

That much system weirdness is generally due to a hardware problem be it a bad part or heat. If it isn't heat stuff like that is generally a either a motherboard or memory problem in most cases. Memory is easy to check though. Go to the memtest86 homepage get the precompiled version for windows and DOS. Create the boot disk that it has you make, then boot up off it and let it run overnight. If you get even one error, then you have a memory problem. This doesn't mean the memory is bad, it could mean that you have the timings set too fast for what the memory can handle as well, so if you get errors, go into the BIOS, slow down your memory timings and run the test again, if you're clean, you're good. It could also be something that can be fixed by a BIOS update. This isn't that uncommon with some of the older VIA chipsets, they had memory controller issues on some of them.

You may also want to hit the VIA website and make sure that you have the latest 4-in-1 or whatever they are calling them now, drivers. Looks like you have a VT82C597 chipset. That can make a difference.

Another thing that I have seen cause stuff like this, again mostly on VIA chipsets, is have DMA enabled. Go into your hardware config for you hard drives and CD-ROM turn off DMA mode and see if it helps. Sure you might take a performance hit, but you might also be able to use your comp.

Other people covered the heat and DirectX issues already.

As an FYI, I played D2 under 2K for over a year without a problem.