epsxe and random freezing

[Kamikaze_Ice]

Alundra, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Arc the Lad I are the only games that don't have these random crashes.

tried Final Fantasy 7-9, Vandal Hearts, Valkyrie Profile, Megaman Legends 1 &2, Chrono Cross, Hoshigami, Saiyuki, Tales of Phantasia (translated and default import images).

all games ripped the same way, and all play fine on my friends computer when he brought his up when he was on Leave, so that rules out any improperly ripped images.

all versions of ePSXe get these same random "freezes", with no error log.
tried on windows xp, vista, and linux. same, but random results each time.
iso, disk, various other image formats as well, all have the same result (with running from disk being the slowest of the bunch)

for the games that DO work, they work flawlessly. no framerate drop or anything.

tried a few different emulators, some work on some games, and some dont. or some will work with some things, but not others. rumble in my pc->ps2 dual box pro for example, or analog mode. (tried SSSpsx, psxeven, and pSX. last of which is flawless but I want pretty eye candy for my hdtv i'm playing on)

theres been a few threads in the past, which i've looked at but none had a solution


tried normal clock speeds, even tried overclocking and underclocking my pc components but all trials were moot. tried different bios versions, drivers, reinstalls of various OS'
checked for faulty hardware by swapping to backup components, alas another dead end.

so what exactly is this "freeze"? its exactly that, a freeze that happens randomly. it just affects epsxe. dosen't happen with any of the other emulators i've tried. (but they've had their own problems, mostly with the Dual Box Pro controler adaptor)

PC speccs:
AMD Athlon FX-51
1024MB Corsair PC3200 RAM
ASUS sk8v motherboard
Creative Audigy 2 zs
Nvidia 6600 (AGP, 256MB video ram version)
ATi 9800 XT (backup card, as their linux support blow chunks)

no, plugin settings didn't change anything. still same randomness.


ps - at one point in the past I never did have this problem with ePSXe. then one day it just started. /shrug. i do know i was not playing the same games as i'm trying now though.

pps - computer isnt overheating, nor is epsxe maxing out my cpu. it's close but not quite.