Computer freezes any time I try to play games after installing new hard drive.

[servo99]

I just recently installed a new hard drive because my old one died on me. I installed windows XP Pro and all of the current drivers I could find. Some of the components are kind of older, like my graphics card, so the manufacturer website did not have the drivers for it any longer and I had to download from a third party website. The problem that I am having is that every time I try to play any game that I install from a CD ROM or DVD ROM, my computer freezes up during the initial loading. It worked before I did this reset. A list of some of the games I have tried that are not working are: Black and White 2, Medieval Total War, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Neverwinter Nights Diamond. These are the only ones I have tried so far, and I know that at least the last 3 worked fine with the old hard drive.
My system specs are as follows:
Processor: AMD Sempron 2500+
Memory: 1024 MB
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce4 TI 4600 128 MB
Sound: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card (I don't know the model off hand)
DVD/CD-RW Combo 40X drive.
On board Ethernet Port, connected to DSL at 100 MBs (i think)

Any help that you can give would really be appreciated! If there is any more information that you might need, ask and ye shall receive! :) Thanks!

[bobbyraw]

is this only happening with the games?

does windows freezes up all by it's self

[servo99]

No, windows works fine, and the more I am looking at it, it only seems to freeze up when it is trying to initiate 3d graphics of any sort. On B&W 2, for example, I got it to play the opening video, but when it went into gameplay, it froze. Similarly, on CoC, it froze at the very beginning. Also, when it freezes up, the audio glitches as well (it freezes and loops the last half second).

[bobbyraw]

u might want to check the settings in the gate, are these frest installs also. check windows virtual mem setting or set the game to operated in a dos emulation.

[servo99]

Okay, so I did a lot of different things, I updated drivers like crazy, I even ran windows system restore to the beginning of this month. Nothing seemed to help. So I decided to look at the hardware and check if there was a lot of dust or something that might be clogging up the works... in the end, it ended up being that one of the cards plugged into my motherboard had come loose. I apparently didn't have it screwed in right or something. Everything works fine now, but it might be a good idea for anyone having trouble to just double check the seating of their cards. Don't jam something in and break it, but make sure it's firmly in place. I know I will. I get the dunce award. Thanks for your replies!