Sounds like it is time to update to a new card. If you want to see if the card is unusable, put it in another machine. Some component has seemingly shorted. Depending on what your video card was sitting next to, heat may have gotten to it or with age and stress, it pushed its last frame.

I thought that might be the case....have tried it in my second machine...a PIII 500 and it did boot up first time......
Do you still think that it is dead...should I be looking for a new card?
 
Adam

Ok. Since your Rage card is in, use your device manager and go to Display Adaptor. Right click on the Rage card and choose properties. Then Driver tab, the Update drivers. What you will want use is the Standard VGA driver. Install them. It will want to reboot. Don't go to your Control Panel and Add/Remove program and remove any programs for your Rage or Nvidia setups. The bring up Windows Explorer and go to \system32 and system32\drivers and delete the nv*.* . Having done that reboot. When it comes up, the screen will be ugly most probably. That means you are running the VGA drivers. Exit Windows and power down the machine. If you want to give your GeForce one last chance, put it in the slot and remove the Rage. Power up. XP may see the new card or may not. Because you are using the VGA drivers, if it comes up, you can re-install your Nvidia drivers. If you had a driver corruption installing the new one's and having erased the old ones should get you past that problem.
Still, I would look for another card. Just in case this acts up again in a few days.

Thanks for your help.....still not seeing the card at bootup....and windows xp hated by Rage card...munning on my old voodoo3 now for a little while until I come back of holiday then GeForce 4 here I come...thanks anyway
 
Adam