ARrrguhghh! i am KICKING myself because/that i didn't wait longer to buy a Graphics card and most certainly a PSU too! - aswell as the memory i bought... everything has gone down so much in price this year already! Oh my gosh... not only did i inadvertently pick agraphics card that wasn't the best esp for the price (although it is a very nice graphics card i must say! (Nvidia 9800GTX+)) but that card is now 50 pounds cheaper ... Ugh... Computer prices get lower for the same stuff over time anyway but with this 'recession' and whatnot things seem to be happening faster.

Great suggestions there AW, i'm liking that you've suggested some cooling options for me too, i'm grateful . I like the look of the black case too, i think i'm due for a new one mines rather tacky (XBlade), meh. Doesn't look like it can support 2 graphics cards in SLi though?... although i may be wrong but i did only read that it said it "has enough room for an NVIDIA 8800 series graphics card, as well as six hard drives and a standardATX motherboard"

Heh,, ouuuuh! its getting tough now! Especially seeing as jay is a "Trainee Game Dev." :P hehh... although smokeycheech did disagree, HMMM! :P aaahr, choices choices choices. This is the fun part, and the hard part =) I''m glad i have you people here to help.
I'll get back to you shortly

Sure thing, let me know and those prices are frustrating lol

So i had an assignment last month in C++ and OpenGL for Computer Games Programming. A 3D Tank Game. While i was testing/playing it, during the intermittent lag spikes (which i expected due to 'the problem i was having' with games and media, and moving files and such) i noticed that whenever it lagged like that, i heard a noise... i thought "lol its hppening once every second" as i assumed that it was my clock - only i realised a few moments later that it wasn't because i moved my clock and coul still hear the same noise from the same direction - and couldn't even HEAR my clock ticking (Homer Simpson Clock that i made myself btw :P its awesome haha).
So, after closer inspection i heart that the noise was in fact coming from my primary-master hard drive - something which i should've definitely checked out when my friend Dean suggested it, which i agreed with, as i had thought about it slightly, but then he enforced those thoughts by pointing out that i was using SATA and IDE together, and I had only had this SATA a short while relatively) - So i went and bought a new 1TB hardrive... installed windows and BAM worked nicely... could play GTA:IV a little better thenhaha and media wasn't lagging anymore. Since then i've installed Windows 7 - and i'm very impressed! (Windows XP was BSODing after i installed a Service Pack, haha)

Long story Short/TL; DR:-
My hard drive was causing the problem that i was having - I still need a new CPU and MOBO though, but at least the problems out of the way now

So i can continue on without any problems, knowing that everything is fine and dandy now

Well, I definitely wouldn't have thought of checking the HDD. But it does make sense, as it could definitely cause that problem. I'm glad its working for you OOC, what brand of HDD was the old one, and what is the new one?

Hello Bradrobo,

Do you still require assistance with your issue or have you sorted it out? Any update on your status would be great. Thanks!

Smokeycheech