Problems running the Source Engine in general

I'm trying to get my girlfriend's laptop to run Empires, but it has trouble even running regular HL2. Everytime I try to do either I get exceptions or errors. She has an Inspirion 6000 with an ATI Radeon x300 in it.

I can post more info about it when I get home, but does anyone have any quick or common advice for what might be wrong? (And yes, drivers are installed)

 

mat_dxlevel 70

type that in launch options

 

Getting this:

Does this indicate a bad install for some reason or something else?

 

SMG3 shouldn't be loaded, it was removed, and error.mdl is the defaut model, i think your HL2 install is corrupt/incomplete. Try verifying the HL2 cache files. Are you sure you installed the correct version?

 

I tried reinstalling and it works now. I have no clue what happened or why it happened.

 

Ok, I'm still having problems with this. It keeps saying some models aren't there, even when they actually are...I'm running out of ideas why this is happening.

I've verified the HL2 cache, the Source Base cache, reinstalled Empires altogether, and still no fix.

Any ideas?

 

Could you post the errors that are getting reported?