All, thanks for the help.

Alex: I am pretty computer savy, however updating bios is not something I have done before. I do know how to get to the bios, however there is no option for chipset or processor as I have seen on other machines I have owned in the past. I will have to research the motherboard make and model (not sure how to find that at the moment) and the firmware version.  I agree, I will start with the windows update first, and driver updates etc before I takle the bios. I will post my specs for the motherboard and firmware. Again, I appreciate your help.

for those of you who have HP computers:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00007682&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=62740

TraceyStudios

for those of you who have HP computers:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00007682&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=62740

Excellent link! This is what I was talking about when I said to go to their web site and not the manufacturer's ...

CAUTION: Only install BIOS updates from HP. Do not install BIOS updates from the motherboard manufacturer's Web site. Doing so might prevent the computer from accepting an HP System Recovery.

CakeAlexS

> Think it through ... if X1 was working for you, X2 should as well.

BTW - this would appear logical to a layman, however this is a completely wrong assumption. Just because X1 is working with certain drivers/firmware etc does not necessarily mean the same for X2. You need to keep up to date.

Drivers I agree, but we're not talking about drivers. We're talking about BIOS/Firmware.

The only time you should even consider updating firmware or BIOS is if it A: Adds new functionality that you want or need to use, or B: It fixes a specific problem that you are experiencing.

For example ... updating your BIOS so your motherboard can support an AMD CPU while you are running an INTEL CPU is not a good reason to update your BIOS.

I'm not saying it's never a good idea to update BIOS or Firmware ... just please do some research beforehand. Sometimes you'll also see a disclaimer that says something to the effect of, "Once you do this BIOS/Firmware update, you cannot go back to an older revision.". And what happens if the BIOS/Firmware makes things worse and you can't go back?

I have a Samsung TV that's pretty much garbage now because I updated the firmware and it changed the internal image settings and I can't revert back to a previous firmware version to when it actually looked good. The notes for the firmware update said nothing about it changing how 'white' the base white reference was, it just said it enabled the USB port to utilize a USB LAN stick.

Just be careful when messing with anything EPROM related. And if you don't know what EPROM means ... you shouldn't be messing with it. ;)

Brilliant cheers Tracy.
And yes Bub, sure whatever you say.

I don't see anything stability related in TraceyStudio's list of problems. They're all bugs, or misunderstandings, that have been reported by others.

I really don't see any reason to go mucking around inside the computer and maybe screw something up.

Thanks for your expert opinion Paul. Yup maybe doing nothing would be easier but 9 times out of 10 "random crashes" is down to drivers, firmware or scandisk needing to be made stable, most often an update will do that. Or even a corrupted project. My X2A  has only crashed twice, no I'm not lucky.

I would think twice maybe more before doing anything to how Windows goes about doing things. Unless its a known tweak for the OS in question I would not do anything that was meant for a much older OS. 

If we are talking about the swapfile then agreed. Leave performance enhancements alone until you are stable.

 IMO Bub is correct on that. Bad advice to just blindly start flashing cmos without careful investigation and a good backup if the flash fails. There is certainly an element of risk there.