I think I may have your answer ... :-)
I have an extremely similar setup:
Windows XP Pro, SP1, No "Background Shenanigans"
ASUS P4S8X MoBo, BIOS v.1004, SiS 648, AGP 8X
Pentium 4 @ 2.53 GHz, 533 MHz FSB (Not overclocked)
512 MB 333 MHz DDR PC2700 RAM
(Samsung, approved DIMM x 1)
Radeon 9700 Pro, Drivers v.7.77~ (w/ "D3D Fix")
Hercules Game Theater XP, v. 4089A
Monsoon 300W 4.1 Flat Panel Surround Sound
Two Maxtor 30GB ATA-100 HD's, NTFS, No RAID
Comcast Cablemodem w/ LinkSys Wireless Firewall
The important thing to note here is the Asus P4S8X BIOS,
version 1004. My MoBo came with 1003A, and I was getting
many frequent BF42 lockups. FLASH your BIOS to 1004 and
they will most likely go away; I believe it has something to
do with the new "One Page Control " setting you'll see under
"Chipset -> Advanced". Don't ask me - Mircon didn't know...
Asus P4S8X BIOS version 1004 (Asus' link is BAD!) :
http://www.asus.com.tw/cgi-bin/dl.as...x/p4s8x004.zip
Filename: p4s8x004.zip Size: 313,035 Bytes
You'll need AFLASH and a boot disk; read Asus' docs.
I still have some occasional hangs, but, the game is playable.
I am pretty convinced now that these hangs are general stability
issues with BF42, perhaps due to an nVidia T&L coding bias. I am
hopeing Dice / EA will fix this since it's an otherwise excellent game!
Also - all nVidiots out there - I came from a GeForce 2GTS,
GeForce3 and GeForce4 4200 128MB, and let me tell you, the
Radeon card SMOKES! Every 3D game I own (which is quite a
few!) runs GLASS SMOOTH and like a PIECE OF ART with all
settings totally maxed out. No need to "go lightly" with this card.
I'm sure nVidia will counter, but not anytime soon enough!
Hope this helps - gonna go save the world now! ;-)