Under the tab: Mainboard: what is listed as Manufacturer and Model?

Intel i845 being the chipset doesn't get us very far.

Is there nothing else?

Motherboard:

Manufacturer = NEC COMPUTERS INTERNATIONAL

Model = Intel i845 1.x

Chipset = Intel i845 Rev. A3

Southbridge = Intel 80801BA (ICH2)

LPCIO = Winbond W83627HF


BIOS:

Brand = American Megatrends Inc.

Version = 1.0K

Date = 11/08/2001


Graphic Interface:

Version = AGP Version 3.0

Transfer Rate = 4x Max Supported = 4x

Side Band = enabled


That's everything from the Mainboard tab I'm afraid...

Packard Bell, the consumer division of NEC Computers International.

Your first post said it was Packard Bell. Sorry I overlooked that.

Do you know the exact Packard Bell model?

http://support.packardbell.com/uk/

A-ha - it's an Packard Bell Imedia 5106, and I see lots of downloads listed on that PB site, (including, interestingly, a load of Nvidia drivers...) Cool that they still support such an old machine too. Any idea which ones I need (ie., do I need to d/l the video card ones, seeing that I just updated them from the Nvidia site) and how I'd go about installing the BIOS updates?

I cannot find the imedia 5106. Can you link to the page you found?

http://support.packardbell.com/uk/it...0402601&g=2000

This was the last BIOS: 22-5-2002. Your current is 11/08/2001.

The only issues noted in the BIOS update are new CPU support. It is a fairly simple process to update. The risk is in any power failure during the update. Unfortunately such a failure leaves the motherboard with no BIOS. This requires a return to Packard Bell to reinstall a BIOS.

http://support.packardbell.com/uk/it...ppn=P480402601


I would leave your Nvidia drivers alone. These old ones revert back to the old original card. Certainly not a 6600.

You might want that DOS application for SP2. DOS Application Patch for Windows XP Service Pack 2

That is about all I see there.

Well I'll have to open the machine up and reconnect the power lead to the old floppy drive before I can do anything, as the BIOS update involves making a bootable diskette (didn't bother as I thought I'd never need it; it must be years since I last used a floppy disk for anything). In the meantime, touch wood, switching from IE to Firefox seems to have solved the crashing issue if not the occasionally jerky screen problem. I pinpointed the issue to problems loading up some of the animated flash / java graphical banner adds and similar that seem to be all the rage at the moment, and Firefox deals with these without problem and much faster than IE can. As it seems a more capable browser generally and is just as easy to use as IE I think I'll just stick with it for the time being...