Update #1

[shereth]

So, I finally figured out that my motherboard had bit the dust

Comments

[kevin_h75]

I've still managed to avoid Vista and unless my work gives me a copy I'll likely keep it that way as I'm getting more and more used to Ubuntu.

But I feel the pain on the hardware, been there done that, nearly the exact same thing but with much older hardware, that "cascade" effect where you finally figure out what is actually wrong, go to fix that and something else breaks in process. Hope you get everything fully up to speed soon.