Well it looks like my poor computer is pretty sick. I don't need to get a whole new one but he's going to price up a new motherboard, cpu and memory which will at least be cheaper than a new machine. He thinks that will salvage everything and it should be ok. Not sure if XP will need to be reloaded or not but he'll do that if need be. He said that he could smell something burning and thinks there is either a short or the cpu is going tits up. Anyway, he's going to call me tonight with a quote and we'll go from there i guess.