Freeze. Again. Sorry!

[andhow 0]

Yes, it’s that old chestnut, the freeze.   Sorry to raise it yet again - I know there are several other posts relating to this and crashes but I think I’ve tried everything suggested in other threads with no success, so I’m hoping somebody might solve the riddle!

> >

The problem…

• My game (SC+RH) worked fine, CTD was rare and performance was excellent, then all of a sudden it started to freeze shortly after loading a city.
• I don’t have to be zooming or anything at the time; in fact I can just be watching the screen as it happens.
• The cursor can be moved but the image locks and the game clock stops. 
• Sometimes I can use Ctrl/Alt/Del and close it, but more often than not I have to reboot.
• It happens every time I play
• The only occurrence around the time I started having problems was updating lace>NAMlace> but this appears not to be a problem according to other posts. 
• If I do manage to get Task Manager, sometimes if I drag the TM window, it leaves a trail of windows behind and then that too locks up.

The freeze happens on all cities, small and large.

> >

My PC…

• Intel 6420 dual processor 2.13 GHz
• 2GB RAM
• VM 4095 start and max
• Kaspersky Internet Security
• NVIDIA 8800GTS graphics card
• Win XP SP2

> >Exception report…

Only ever had one since it’s been happening…

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 476 (0x000001dc).

Versi