this is my problem. its been happening for a few months now, and now that im reaching the time when i need to be outputting large amounts of work im hitting crisis point! i have no idea why its doing this, but wen i turn it on, its fine. i can use stuff etc. yey all is good! for about an hour...ish. then it goes haywire! all the icons vanish an on the taskbar the icons by the clock are replaced by black squares and the start button fails...the most notable is the log-off box. the blue background to it vanishes and it goes see-thru and the programs crash and windows dont open and...its barmy! wen i try to open stuff it comes up wiv 'is not a valid windows32 bitmap' an stuff like that...am desperate! aaaaany idea? hintin someone suggested graphics cache, which is now at 4 gig! an its not helpin. any ideas...thanx:D! byee x