Yea - I'll do that.... I'll wait for a weekend my dad is here - incase I screw up
Oh - we [ie, dad] also tried booting it up under some linux thing which boots off a cd to check for blaster [we thought that might be the case - it was playing up for the previous week or so] but as far as I know, I don't have it.
The other option my dad suggested was that my video card was in a fit - due to some options or drivers being changed/mutilated/etc because of something I installed..... I installed something in the order of 10 demos though - so I have no idea which could [or would] do that.
Meh - Time to wipe it.