Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
Does it give the option to uninstall it?
Edit: Also found an article explaining the normal procedure for updating the hal dll, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q234558.
Beyond that I am out of ideas.
In Msconfig under the boot tab click advanced options, in this menu you should see a check box for "detect hal", check it than click ok and reboot. This worked for me when my system lost a core after updating to vista sp1.
Because it's a game they are interested in, games like it are the reason the PS2 was so popular and GameCube/XBOX were not. If MS can get a steady flow of these types of games in Japan than they have a very good chance of taking the console crown from Sony.
What about something like this- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833124065 ? Wouldn't it do most of what the Killer NIC claims to do?
If your not dead set on multi channel than I would suggest the Onkyo R805Xt slim stereo receiver. http://www.accessories4less.com/cgi-bin/item/ONKR805XT
I would say it's about half the height of those cube PC cases, maybe even a bit smaller.