Freezing... but not Freezing.

[Bull00]

Ok, so I'm not sure what this problem is. I'm running Windows Vista on my Sony Vaio Laptop, and what appears to happen is: I start a multiplayer game, and it seems to freeze, but i still hear the sounds of battle going on in the background. I can still move my mouse around. So I Ctrl Alt Del to bring up task manager, and go to the desktop, and just open the game back up and everything seems fine. Then it will freeze again after a few seconds or minutes of gameplay (totally inconsitant). But it's not froze, i'll hear myself get killed, or if i still swing or fire my weapon i can hear it. Then just ctrl alt del again, go to desktop minimizing the game, restore the game, and I can play again. Of course someone has already slaughtered me and i've respawned and been killed again. Very strange. I think it's my computer. because this has happened with other programs and games before, but it's been tolerable. But now in multiplayer.... Maybe I should get this fixed.

So... this is like a cosmetic problem? Anyone know what this is?