FFXI/POL crash, reboots PC (sometimes)Follow

I'm having a problem with FFXI; at random times, it will crash to desktop with an error that says "PlayOnline has encountered a problem and needs to close" (the technical details indicate a crash in d3d8.dll) or simply reboot the machine. It happens most often when I am fighting in a party, but has also happened once when I was simply standing in the middle of the La Thiene Plateau talking to someone.

It's not a driver problem -- every driver from the motherboard on up is the newest one available. DirectX is 9.0c. BIOS settings are at the manufacturer's suggested settings for the video card, and monkeying around with them otherwise didn't help. It's not a heat issue -- under load, the card runs less than 80C, ambient case temperature never going above 55C, and running with the side off and a fan blowing into the PC didn't help but did almost deafen me. Ran a RAM test from a Linux installation disk overnight with no problems.

According to tech support, FFXI doesn't like onboard sound, so I installed a Sound Blaster Live! Value I had lying around; it didn't help, with the default XP drivers or with the newest from Creative. I looked at other threads here and across the Web and tried things from them -- disabling force feedback on the gamepad screen, for instance, even though the gamepad is disabled and I don't have one connected anyhow -- and it still happens.

This also doesn't happen in any other games, even online ones -- I can stay connected to and play City of Heroes for hours on end, play things like Return of the King and Vampire: Bloodlines with no problem.

Just tonight I was in Valkurm Dunes, and invited to a party in the Korroloka Tunnel. I ran all the way from Valkurm to the Bastok Mines without a crash -- what is that, 10, 15 minutes? -- only to crash during the second fight the PT got in. Over the course of an hour I crashed five times 'til I finally decided to give up for the night.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm about to quit the game in utter frustration.

Processor: AMD Sempron 3000+
Hard drive: 55.9GB (17.6GB free)
RAM: 512MB
Video card type: GeForce 6600 GT (from BFG Tech)
Sound card type: SoundBlaster Live! Value
OS: Windows XP SP2
Computer model: custom-built
Frequency of problem: very frequent in combat, sporadic otherwise

Yes, the onboard sound is disabled in the BIOS. It no longer shows up in Device Manager.

The SoundBlaster has an IRQ all to itself (17). The only "conflicts" shown from msinfo32 really aren't conflicts.

I'm a bit reluctant to blame RAM because if it was a RAM issue, I'd expect to see it at other times -- yet it only happens during FFXI. Plus I *need* that RAM for the main use of this PC (which is programming, not gaming). Still, I might try it at some point.

Thanks for the advice.

I turned the sound off altogether, both in the PlayOnline Viewer and in Final Fantasy XI. The machine still rebooted. (By the way, the game seems really eerie without sound, somehow.)

Tech support's last stab at the problem was to tell me that Forceware 66.93 wasn't supported and to try 61.77 -- which I can't because support for the GeForce 6600 was added in 66.93 -- and to turn sound acceleration down to basic. Neither setting it to basic or off helped. They told me they couldn't help me any further and to take the STOP error to Microsoft. Hmph.

This *is* a fresh install of XP and FFXI; that's one of the first things I tried to fix the issue, since the video card I had before this one was an ATI-Radeon-based card.