Azathoth

Perfect! Much obliged. New machine, but I suppose it must have been at the retailer's for a while.

I'm having a similar sort of problem. On Windows 7 64-bit, with an Nvidia 520, the computer totally freezes at the point where it should begin loading the 3d map. After all the parameters and options are set, I get a black screen with a mobile cursor, but no loading icon. After a few seconds, the cursor freezes and it is impossible to return to desktop by Ctrl-Alt-Del, Alt-Tab, or the Windows key. The longest I've permitted this state to persist before a hard shutdown is 10 minutes, but I see little reason to believe that there would be any change within any period of time. Advice? If the problem persists, I could always just clone my old XP HDD and play off a partition, but that will take a bit of time.

This is why I love playing defense!