1. I would have a very difficult time believing someone from BestBuy's tech department. I am sure there are some tech people working there who know their stuff, but in my experience there are a lot of "flakes". If they cannot figure something out in 5 minutes they give you a "canned" answer-- or tell you to use the "restore" disk and hope that you have backed up your data like they told you when you bought the computer.
2. I highly doubt that your AGP slot is simply not working, especially if you card works outside of games.
I would be highly suspect of your roommates "accidently" having done something that caused your current problems. You probably have a corruption of some sort that is causing your problem. (possibly your computer locked up/someone shut it down improperly, yada yada yada)
Well, In any case you have a GREAT excuse to now Build a new Monster!!! ... And you already have a couple of nice Vid cards to use in it (Unless you want to send one to us....to test and report on ...of course
IF you want to work at it a little more you could try the following.
1. make sure your northbridge is CLEAN and that the little fan on it is working properly (try replacing the fan). You will get weird lockups if it gets hot-- and the wonderful new 3d games Do get things hot.
I know you have tried most of the following but what the heck (you might have several things going on at the same time which are causing the problems you are seeing):
1. make sure you have reset all the settings in your bios to the failsafe, and your memory timings are not incorrect.
2.
make sure your FSB and Multiplier are set properly for your processor --ANY overclock can easily change the settings ratio that goes to your agp and this can cause problems (usually when combined with another "glitch")
3, I would go into your System/device manager and just delete all of the drivers (agp, soundcard, video display adapters, ...hell have fun and just delete everything that is remotely associated with video and audeo, and throw in a few more for good measure (you are going to build yourself a new purter anyway..RIGHT).. then reboot and let windows rebuild all of your drivers from scratch.
(of course you have upgraded your BIOS, and you can then put in the last GOOD drivers from nvidia)
4. you can also have fun by doing a Clean, fresh install of windows, if all else fails.
5. Oh yes...I forgot.... the way to fix your problem is to use your "restore disk". (You DID backup all of your data like they told you to when you bought the computer....Didn't you???
YOu will notice that I did not even touch on such things as a corruption in your Direct X (might want to check it out) etc.
I my fingers have blisters from typing....
