Although the whole reason for MA3's existance is to take advantage of the advances in graphics cards in the last 10 years, your nVidia 9600 should be more than enough card to handle it without overheating. What frame rate are you getting? The Sleep setting should be used to adjust the frame rate to about 60 frames-per-second, which gives smooth animation without wasting energy painting frames which will never be shown.
I'm not completely convinced that overheating is causing your problem, since the fan doesn't come on until after the lockup. My wife's computer often does this when using MSN, and we've never figured out why.
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