Hi all, It seems my Agp graphics card and on board sound card packed in at the exact same time. 6 months ago my agp card packed in, so i replaced it with a same make/upgraded card. This card has been working fine for around 4-5 months. when i last booted, windows loaded up with only 16 colours and 1 resolution. obviously with screen being ugly looking now, i first thought the g/card had broke. but i noticed the sound was no longer around (I'm sad and have a nice lady talking to me instead of beeps lol). So I tried to play a tune, and all programs say they can't detect a sound card. Am I right in assuming my motherboard has broken? when I check device manager, all components show present and functional. I have done all virus/spyware scans, I look after my pc's very well. I wish I could try another board but as windows doesn't load in a different board, i am unable to find this out.

Try this: Remove the sound and video drivers (one at a time) in the Device Manager and reboot. Windows should reinstall them. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

I wish i could. unfortunately, when i switched it on, it keeps rebooting and rebooting at the welcome screen. I tried safe mode, with no joy too. If i can add... I can use the drive in another pc as a slave no problems. If that helps. Many thanks.

How to do a system repair.--Boot from the xp cd and go past the recovery console to the install menu. Select repair the existing installation. You won't lose any data except the xp updates. Unless you have a slipstream sp1 Or SP2 cd you will have to d/l sp1 or sp2 and all subsequent updates. You MUST have at least SP1 installed and the updates for security reasons. Be sure the firewall and A/V is active before going online as you will be susceptible to sasser and msblaster. http://computervitals.com/

It helps if you describe the full symptoms of your problem. Your original question simply says you have a problem with graphics resolution and no sound, and that you can look in device manager. That tells us you can boot into windows. Now you say you cannot boot into windows, and the system reboots at the welcome screen. Disconnect the drive and see if you can just boot up into bios. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

yes, my first post was correct, my apologies. i switched off, and used my downstairs pc to ask you guys, and tried suggestion 1, to which i found the pc wouldn't boot. I will find my windows cd, and try the repair. as I won't be able to do this untill tomorrow, what do i do if the cd repair fails?

First try a system restore to before the problem. http://computervitals.com/