I´ve got exactly the same problem. Starting the suffering without crack doesn´t work. With the d. crack appears this error message whatever it says. I just ask myself what u mean by older athlons? My 1GHz one seems not very fast but ok 2 me? However, 4 me the crack doesn´t work right on my system. I would like to know if it generally works on other systems or do we all have to buy the program?
I just hope, that with version 1.01 somebody releases a new crack and we can all anjoy our "safety copys"