It sounds like a Starforce issue to me. In case you didn't know, this type of copy protection can seriously gum-up your system and have an adverse effect on many other games and system performance (as it integrates itself with your system and runs even when a Starforce title is not being played.) Depending on how various other games use your hardware/software Starforce might also be attempting to "protect itself" by crashing/locking up your system.
You can read up on this here and a list of protectd titles can be found here (including The Suffering: Ties That Bind).
Edit: God, i'm an idiot, why do I even try?
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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Excrono