DX9 SOund drivers or Display card?

[FrozenNorth]

Hi!
I have a few problems with newer games like Max Payne 2. They just freeze, MP2 in the middle of in-game videos, the screen goes black and sounds hang. Nothing helps but reset.
So, I looked into this, and there was something like my soundcard, SB Live! 5.1, needed DX9 compatible drivers. I have the latest from Creative, but since they are already old, being published in the first quarter of 2002, I guess there are newer versions?
It could also be my Radeon 8500le 'cos I tried MP2 with my friends GF4ti4200 installed and it worked out fine. Put my own card in and it hangs. Latest drivers (Catalyst 3.10 I think) are installed. Any ideas?
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Asus A7V266-Ex
XP1800+
Radeon 8500le 64mb
768mb DDR266
SB Live! 5.1

 

[LiLithTecH]

What OS?

There are other issues that can cause the same effect.
Underpowered Power Supply, Heat build-up, faulty ram.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Windows XP professional.
300w power supply, and cpu heat is about 55c with 100% usage. Ram is ok, I've checked it and most games, like Splinter Cell work just fine.
I've installed memoryheatsinks into that Radeon so I think it's not overheating either...
I just formatted my C: and reinstalled windows so I shall test if it works now but help is stil welcome
thx