I just wanted to update all you wonderful people who offered me assistance in my hour of need.

My daughter has arrived from another state and brought her note book with her. When she tried to connect to my cable, she couldn't get signal. She contacted my ISP and they sent a technician to my home to check the cable and my computer.

End of that story is that although my computer was causing problems, it seems I had a fault caused by my ISP as well.

So far the computer hasn't shut itself down after doing lots of the things that were suggested by you all, and I can now connect to the internet once more. I have my fingers (etc) crossed, that whatever the problem was....it's eased for now.

As I said before, my PC is getting near it's use by date, so I really do hope I can win one in the Entertainment Package competition I'm entering. That would give me a brand new one. Wish me luck!