Two new fixes came out in the last couple of months that address this error message:

SQL Version .996.

FIX: You receive a 17883 error message and SQL Server 2000 may stop responding to other requests when you perform large in-memory sort operations

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891268

SQL version .988

FIX: A 17883 error is written to the SQL Server 2000 error log and the LogWriter component does not yield correctly

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;890637

Mindy