Seems after much crashing, trials and errors and research I found that the newer SoundMAX drivers for my onboard Pavilion zx5180us didn't include 3D sound and that was causing the game to reject the soundcard or freeze altogether.
I don't know what system You might be running, but check and see if your onboard audio is 16bit Sound Blaster Pro capable and if it is.
Download the zipped driver file found here
http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=130663

Extract to a folder and remember the folder location.

Run new hardware wizard and load the driver files that you just extracted.
Perfectly compatible so far and the game runs like a charm with onboard audio now.

Mark:)