"After spending 4-5 hours today attempting to get FS9 "tweeked" I've come to the conclusion that I GIVE UP.":-(

AGP is set to 4X and for some reason can not be changed in the nVidia set up screen. My AGP aperture is set to 64 Mb in my bios, also.Steve

To everyone who has helped me in this Quest: I'm going to be upgrading to Windows XP Home this week sometime. Wal-Mart has the Upgrade package for $99 so I will give it a try. My understanding is that this same CD can be used as a clean install if necessary. I also have my extra 512 Mb stick of DDR333 to install after my upgrade. Even though I said that I give up, I'll keep on trying. I'm just going flying in FS2002 tomorrow to keep my sanity.

Steve - Given what you've been through, I think you'd be doing yourself a BIG favor if you bite the bullet and go for a clean install from the beginning. That will absolutely preclude the possibility that whatever is hosing up the system now will be carried over to the XP install (and a strong possibility at that if it's software-related). Just as a reference, this is an excellent guide to an XP clean install - http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html . Good luck with whichever way you decide to go. We're pulling for you.Doug