Classic British Flight Sim

Paul
Sorry this may be too late for you, but....

My computer occasionally shut down without any warning, then it did odd things on start up, eventually yesterday refusing to go past "Windows is starting"

So I opened the case. As there were 3 slots capable of holding my NVidia card, I swapped it to another slot.

Upon reboot, it went about its business discovering and installing new hardware for what seemed an age.

Since then, it's started and run trouble free. Might be worth a try, matey.

All up cost of $0.00 very much within my budget.

No, not too late Mike, and something well worth considering. Thank you.

I haven't had the 'not genuine Windows' message appear since that one time, so whatever it was has gone or rectified itself. I'm not sure about the CMOS battery fault either. One of the sure signs is the time and date not staying current, but that seems all okay on my PC. It might be that I never turn the power off fully anyway( meaning the switch at the back, and pulling the power cord out ), but if there's one thing we all learn over the years with these damned machines, it's 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. So, my new battery will remain in its packet for now - the use-by date is 2024, so no rush.

Its still taking an eternity to boot up, however, and sometimes icons that should appear in Systray don't ( Seagate Freeagent manager for instance - sometimes its there, sometimes it isn't ). So it looks like this afternoon I must hazard a Windows repair. In the famous words of Captain Oates, I may be some time.

Well, Paul,
Shifting that video card is going to be heaps quicker than reinstalling Windows. I'm no expert, but your problem sounds remarkably similar to mine, and it took me about ten minutes to fix, apart from Windows doing those hardware finds etc.
I had run every check I could think of, and was constantly told that everything was AOK, whereas in truth, things were not. My boot times were stretching, there was even a flash message once about Windows on D:\ this was odd because D:\ is my DVD. Everything is on one unpartitioned C:
Good luck with your choice and outcome.

Hi Mike, no, I'm not reinstalling Windows completely, just running Windows repair. Or at least that was the intention earlier today. One of my problems was that the BIOS had lost the boot disc setting and each time I turned the computer on, I had to press F8 to specify which drive to boot from. That was a BIOS setting glitch obviously, not a Windows one. Once Windows was up and running, my Seagate Freeagent manager ( an external back-up drive ) wasn't initialising - a problem which pre-dates the BIOS glitch.

So, before doing the Windows repair, I had to sort out the BIOS setting, which I did, and now it boots up fine. Thing is, I seem to have sorted the Freeagent problem too, and I wonder if the little workmen inside my computer were getting the Seagate confused with the system disc, or sommat. Anyway, I've rebooted several times, and all now seems well, if still a bit slow in getting there. I've also done another full scan with Malwarebytes, and have a clean bill of health

Therefore the Windows repair is on hold for the moment, as I want to see if any more problems arise. While I am waiting, I'll try patching P3D V2.2 to V2.3 - Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without a computer related headache.