Riddick - Butcher Bay crashing computer

I have an amd athlon64 3800+ with a geforce 6800gt and a gig of ram for good luck.

Hokay so, I've been playing the game just fine right - resolutions a little low but no big deal. Then I get to the part where you fight in the riot armor (the mobile suit type thing) and all's good until I have to fight a pair of "flamingos." I kill one, the shit hits the fan. The game completely freezes my computer and crashes the system: good game.

So I reinstall it and apply the v1.1 patch for good measure and now I realize that the original version had problems with geforce cards. Hot damn I say as I find I can run the game in 1280x1024 at a better framerate than before. Surely this must fix the problem.....nope, same bullshit - I go to fight the flamingos and my system gets raped.

===> Has anyone else encountered this problem and found either a fix, a workaround or basically a way for me to finish this damn fine game.

yeah I mean my vid card can definitely handle this game its just weird as hell that it keeps crashing my ENTIRE system - and also a little scary, I really hope this doesnt fuck my entire computer.

I googled around and found something about turning EAX off to solve the problem - anyone know if this is a viable solution? I'd rather not risk getting the blue screen of death again by testing it if someone out there knows it works.