Ah, there´s another thing coming to my mind.
A total freeze of your machine (needing a hard reset to reboot) could be a symptom of CPU (main or graphic) overheating. I had this problem with my graphic card when playing NWN or Morrowind - simply removing one of the side panels to let additional air in when playing solved it in my case.
You can find a little program to read out and log your main CPU temperature here:
http://mbm.livewiredev.com
Not everything going wrong on your machine is an application or driver bug
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