OK. What was the solution?

Solution was...

Instead of deleting the Nvidia drivers and leaving the Physx in place, I deleted everything nvidia using control panel, THEN, did a clean install using CUSTOM instead of EXPRESS and installed driver 290.53 and Phyx ONLY - none of the 3D or updater crap.

290.53 had been installed and unstable with the mb BIOS of 1201 and bsod'd several times on me. I thought it was the driver and was going to update it. Thought I'd give it one more go (thank god) and this time .. IT WORKED :)

Somehow, the express install had previously installed a component of 290.36 - not sure if it was that or the other crap, but hey... it works :)

Thanks again for your help yesterday Scotty :thumbsup:

Shitty driver install and delete. Got it. :thumbsup:
Anytime buddy.:)

Strange thing is, I had done several uninstalls and reinstalls of several different drivers - even this one did not work until I deleted the four different nvidia apps individually and reloaded that it worked :Dizzy:

Thanks MD. I just got finished ranting against 3D elsewhere (I have not got into 3D gaming yet) but from 3D movie watching I can say it is a worthless effect that has not significantly changed over the last 30 years and is even MORE lame and superficial than it was way back when it was first developed.

It might be different for PC gaming but in video watching 3D is always an afterthought. That is the movie itself is not 3D mostly 2D with some 3D special effects