I had some lockups on my inlaws computer in France too, though I don't think they had anything to do with the sound.
The game would launch, but there would not be the scrolling background, just the menu. I could make a god fine, and get all the way to the select map part of 'create a new game' at that point when I selected the map the HD would thrash a bit and the game would just freeze. I figured it was some gfx thing, but I got new drivers and .dlls and everything I could think of (latest DirectX too) and nothing improved the situation. I couldn't open maps in the map editor and I couldn't launch my PBEM game either.
I figured it was some strange incompatability with whatever junk was on that computer, but reading this problem it sounds somewhat similar to my problem though you managed to get into the game, but the battle screen locked you up, maybe its a 3-d issue? Well hope someone solves your problem
