Help on debugging - mp3dec.asi giving me trouble according to Event Viewer, Application log

I have an old game, Heroes3, that I have played for a few years now on various computers - all older and running windows xp pro.  On my new laptop I have been getting errors from time to time.  The program crashes and in the event viewer, in the Application log, the error message says  "Faulting application heroes3.exe, version 4.0.0.0, faulting module mp3dec.asi, version 3.0.0.0, fault address 0x00002280"

Now, as far as mp3dec.asi, I see this file in my Command and Conquer Generals game also, and I can't swap the two, heroes won't even open with a different mp3dec.asi file.  I assume by the name this is an audio decoder, mp3 for the audio, and dec for decoder.  I hid the file and was able to open the game, and also hear sound.  Now I did not test every aspect of the game to see if some sounds will not work now, and I have only played it for a short bit since hiding mpsdec.asi, so I am not sure of the full impact from my actions of removing mp3dec.asi.

Does anyone have more info on mp3dec.asi?  If you do, if you could help me understand how to dig this kind of information up - I'm a big believer in the "teach a man to fish" theory vs "give a man a fish".  

Also, is there a method to get more information from the fault address - meaning does it point to a different file that is making the heroes game's mp3dec.asi file unstable on my laptop but not on any of my other P3 machines?  

Any debugging suggestions are helpful.

I should mention I have updated all my drivers, video, sound, chipset, network, everything.  I didn't mess with the BIOS yet because I would rather try something else instead of messing with the BIOS, if indeed id does need to be updated.  I have not verified this.