Any PC Gurus here?

[Shaun]

I'm guessing they've replaced your nVidia card with an ATI. This is a known issue...change your desktop theme and back again and it'll go away.

That worked.

[Marc J]

That worked.

Of course it did! Don't tell me you doubted me?

So, we can assume the gfx card off eBay was a dud?

[Shaun]

EDIT: Check out http://groups.google.com/group/micro...e35c8?lnk=raot

Thanks for that. The additional fixes outlined in the link didn't work. If the problem persists every reboot I might just try Daz's recommendation. For now though the black box is gone. I've had it with PC problems for now.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

People bang on about how great or how rubbish browsers are but to me they are just a browser and Chrome is much faster than IE8 for me.

[Shaun]

Of course it did! Don't tell me you doubted me?

So, we can assume the gfx card off eBay was a dud?

I didn't doubt you for a minute. I've lost count of the amount of times you've saved me from disasters.

The card from ebay worked. It was supplied with a vga cooler kit (which wasn't attached when it arrived), and came with 8 heatsinks that had to be placed on the cards ram. The card had 12 ram on it so I had to order some additional heatsinks on t'internet, which is why my machine has been in the shop so long.

All seems to be working well with the grafx card now (for now anyway). I think I need some additional cooling in there though, things seem to be breaking down too often.