[Chieftain]

I'm having a problem here which is doing my head in. People keep going on about how amazing this game is, so I had it imported (I'm in the UK) only to find out I can't even load the flipping game! Problem as follows:

It all install absolutely fine, no problems. It's when I try to load the game, the cursor turns to an egg-timer then the whole PC just locks up - this is still at WinXP desktop. It doesn't get to any type of splash screen or anything, just a little bit of HD activity, then the egg-timer, then lock... the PC then requires a reboot as ctrl, alt & del does nothing.

I have tried many different things, loads of different graphics settings, turning on / off settings I've never touched before, tried installing it to the defauly directory rather than my dedicated games drive, all of my drivers are up-to-date. My system is as follows:

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
Athlon XP2800+ (o/c to 3200+)
1gb PC3200 RAM
XFX GeforceFX 5900XT (o/c to 5950Ultra)

It's 100% stable, BF2 running like a dream. I consider myself a pretty experienced gamer and techie, but this has got me completely stumped. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any ideas from anyone?

Thanks for your help in advance,
Tim