I'm sorry I have no idea what your problem is (you explained it ok, I just don't get why it is doing that either) so I can't really give you advice in fixing it, but I hope someone else will be able to. Exactly how old is the computer? The only advice I can really offer is if you can't fix it easily, you may be better off picking your kids up a slightly newer system, such as a 33, 66 or 133 Mhz... they can go from anywhere between free and $80 (at the very most--you might have to search around though...) and people still have those around. (I do and I know of some others) Anyway, it sounds like the machine now is kinda old and it will be hard to fix any other problems you come across because people just don't know how to fix those anymore, and it gets worse with time because that is just the way technology works. It sounds like your kids won't need to use the computer for a whole lot but it might be nice to get a more reliable one. I picked up a 33Mhz a few years ago for I think $20 and it still works pretty well for anything light you decide to put it up to. (such as low-graphics games, word processing, internet... pretty much anything that doesn't require a vid card or more than 32 mb ram) It may be worth a try... --Mike