System always freezes and requires hard reset

[Bumpkin]

Hello all,
Im new to this whole forum thing, so if I make any newbie errors please forgive and I'll learn fast. Now if that hasnt put everybody off heres my problem:

Bought Nap on fri in uk and have attempted playing it a few times, each time my PC freezes up completely, no alt+cntr+del or alt+tab, and I have to hard reset. This has happened both in the campaign map and battle. The least play i got out of it was 6 mins and the most 1hr18mins.
Heres my spec :

IN9-32x max motherboard
Intel 2833 mhz quad core
nvidia gforce 8800 ultra video card 768 mb, driver: 6.14.11.9621
4 gb RAM
Win XP SP3 (very recent fresh install)
Direct x 9.0c

As far as I can find out all my drivers are up to date,
Ive tried reducing my video settings in game to low and changed to shader 2,
Ive used Windiag to check my RAM for errors and hot CPU tester to check my CPU and motherboard,
Ive scanned my HD for errors and defragged my HD,
Ive used the ‘verify integrity of game cache’ and ‘defragment cache files’ options in steam,
Ive checked my event viewer to check for app errors, none,

Nothing has helped so far, Ive tried again a few more times and still get a complete system freeze after an approx average game time of 10mins. Napoleon is the only app that does this to my system.

I am now looking at running nap on a virtual machine to see what happens, but this will take a little time to set up and may still just freeze up the whole system.

Am I missing anything? Is anyone out there running OK with a similar spec?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[karamazovmm]

try changing drivers 182.XX 196.XX are the choice

read the troubleshoot thread all of it

[Bumpkin]

Mr MM,
You are truly amazing. I never would have thought to wind back my display driver, always the simple things, you have saved my total war experience, now i can play at full ultra fro as long as i want,

Many, many thanks and praises to you sir, all hail Mr MM, huzzar!!