SoundBlaster Problems
If you have a soundcard (not a chip on the motherboard) what PCI slot is your soundcard plugged into?
SoundBlaster soundcards are infamous for not performing well on the lower slots (beyond slot 3 on most PCI buses). Other cards may also have problems. Try moving the card closer to the graphics card, or if it's already as close as it can get, then try moving the card down a slot or two.
On-Board Soundchips
If you have an on-board soundchip, there are several web reports seem to indicate there are problems with some on-board sound chip drivers causing this problem, here is one:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-34588.html
For both onboard and PCI soundcards there are a few things to try and eliminate this problem.
Get the latest drivers for your motherboard and for your sound card
Make sure you have all the latest O/S updates installed from Microsoft (windows update).
Be sure to get the latest DirectX version installed as well.
Don't Run Both
If you have a sound chip on your motherboard and you upgrade to new PCI audio card, you must uninstall the old drivers and then disable the on-board soundchip in your BIOS settings before installing the new card.
Try Turning off the Sound
Try uninstalling all audio drivers and see if the game runs without crashing, you can also try disabling the sound chip in the device manager: right-click on the sound card and select "disable", you can re-enable it later once we see if it helps or not. On-board soundchips can usually be disabled in the BIOS.
In the game, you can also try:
nosound 1
in your game console (~) or:
+nosound 1
In you game launch properties and see if that has an effect.
I know it's no fun to play without sound, but try it for a while just to see if the problem is still there.
If the problem goes away then you know what is causing the problem.
Phone Home
If after installing all the latest drivers and O/S updates you still have this problem, you might try contacting your motherboard manufacturer and see what their recommendations are, especially for on-board soundchips.
DirectX Accelleration
You can also turning down or disabling the DirectX Sound Acceleration.
You do this by going to your start button:
Start > Run > DXDIAG <enter>
Then go to the Sound Tab and turn off hardware acceleration, then exit and run the game and see if there
is any change. If the problem goes away then you can go back and move the acceleration up a step at a
time until the problem starts happening again .. then reduce the acceleration one step.
Two last things,
1. in the game sound options, make sure that EAX and A3D options are UNCHECKED.
2. There are reports that some sound codecs can cause this problem, specifically:
k-lite mega codeck pack
