it might just be easier to do a reformat.... but lets see what the experts sayhave figures out (i think) where the problem is! The game i was playing at the time it first crashed is football manager. I have been trying to uninstall it but everytime i do it crashes! is there anyway to get it off my computer or am i stuck with formatting it?The whole thing SOUNDS FUBAR'ed. A good format and reinstal would have fixed it by now.  How did you TRY and do the memtest86 test?
Did you extract it to a floppy then boot to that floppy?
A clean install won't fix a hardware problem so I'd try Memtest first.Well i hadnt TRIED doing a memtest that way but i have decided to take this opppurtinuty to upgrade my graphics card, MOTHERBOARD and add extra memory!

Thankx guys for all ur support and time!  With a new motherboard you will need to format and reinstall Windows so this is a good time to address all issues.

Let us know how the story ends.  hey guys

a short update, i have got a new motherboard and graphics card! however it wasnt any of those that caused a problem nor was it a software problem! It turns out the problem is with my HARD drive so i am going to take this oppurtunity to get a bigger hard drive

will keep you informed!

(i am sure that someone had already told me that a complete re-format probabl;y wouldn't do the job!! lol)