thanks again mate and sorry for not getting back to you sooner.
That link was very helpful and it led me to a lot of other internet things about it too, so thanks man
(I couldn't find that overclockers link when I searched, but anyhow, you did and that's all that matters
) The 8800 GTS seemingly is slightly better than the Integrated Intel graphics, not a lot but enough, so that defo worth a try
.
ALSO, big update, I had a look last night at the last time I upgraded my motherboard bios and since then there has been 10 updates, YES 10 UPDATES, LOL.....
So, I took the plunge and updated the bios to the most recent and then worked into the small hours tweaking all the new added options to the bios that they have added and got my cpu overclocked and stable again same as before, was a bit of hassle, but after hours I got it all done and then made sure to save it too.
ANOTHER update, I contacted my PSU manufacturer and checked to see if just maybe its still under warranty, I have to wait until next week to see what happens with that as I might get a replacement, hope so.
In the meantime though I guess it would be a good idea with the latest Bios update installed to try the AMD 6990 again just to see if it works or not, as I think you and others have said, sometimes, just sometimes, a bios can get corrupted for some reason, so that's always a possibility, and at this stage anything is worth a try, one step at a time though so that I can figure out whats going on.
Looks like I will be dealing with the graphics card side of things first as its going to take days for the PSU manufacturers to get back to me later in the week.