Thanks for all the suggestions... it's looking like a hardware problem... It happens to all three versions... 3, 4 and 5... They all start, run great.. then it goes... rendering doesn't seem to affect it.. it can go before I do a render, when I'm just mesing about with poses etc,, or I can do several, firefly or P4, main window or new (and it renders in seconds!!the reason why I bought a new PC!)... content makes no difference either... my version of 5 has no 3rd party installed and the 'basic' P4 was the first program I loaded on the new PC... vickie or P4 figures, high res textures or simple primatives... it can go anytime! I think it's a matter of deduction... it's not the programs, all 3 can't have the same problem and 3 and 4 worked fine on my old PC (just slowly!), something in my new PC doesn't like the poser 'engine' which I think is similar to all 3... it runs fast and fine for a while then suddenly a signal is sent to the monitor that it can't handle... it isn't the monitor, I've used 2... so next down the chain is the graphic card...