freezing problem

Hi to all,,,,,,I hope someone can help me please with this problem.
I am playing FEAR and sometimes during the game the sound makes a loud hiss
and it takes some getting rid of and always when I finish the the game it just goes to a
black screen and freezes and I have to press the power button which is the only way to
close down.
I have installed the latest nvidia driver but it makes no difference.
here is my system.
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

2.60 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Board: MSI MS-7369 1.0
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. V2.4 11/20/2007

NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT [Display adapter]
ViewSonic VX924 [Monitor] (19.1"vis, s/n PS3052512832, June 2005)

Creative SB Live! Series (WDM)
Creative SBLive! Gameport
Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device (3x)
USB Human Interface Device (2x)
HID Keyboard Device
HID-compliant mouse
Microsoft USB IntelliMouse Explorer
Generic USB Hub
USB Composite Device
USB Mass Storage Device (2x)
USB Root Hub (2x)

I do hope you can help please.
Len