Vista - Sound causing crashes? 64bit

Quick question:

Could 32 bit sound be causing my Ultimate 64 rig to crash during games? I was poking around in MSCONFIG and I saw that my SOUNDMAX integrated sound was 32 bit. Thinking that one of my buddies installed it wrong I downloaded the driver from Asus, only to find that my MSCONFIG still says 32 bit. Apparently there have been a few people online that have had similar problems. (It seems as though there is no 64 bit SOUNDMAX for Vista, but there is one for XP. Would I be better off installing the 64bit sound for XP, or would that just make things worse?) Am I just barking up the wrong tree, or could a 32 bit program as important to gaming as sound be causing my freezes? (Company of Heroes keeps freezing on a Grey SOD and loops sound, usually heavy machine guns oddly enough).

Thanks,

SJ