1 hour ago, Gina said:

The Windows desktop is going to need some attention (or dumping).  It keeps crashing   Can't reinstall the OS as this was second hand and I haven't got the Win 7 DVDs.  It may be worth buying another old Win 7 desktop and moving the data drives over.  OTOH maybe I could use the Win 7 laptop now that is isn't my imaging computer.  It would be rather nice to recover the space taken by the old Win 7 desktop

Have you tried restarting the computer and keep pushing ESC key , my windows 7 was in there.

No, haven't tried that.  Thanks for the suggestion   But I think the problem may be the graphics card.  I'm using a separate graphics card and HDMI connection.  I can try using the mobo graphics and a standard monitor.

Been checking the Win 7 desktop.  There's certainly something wrong with it.  Tried a standard monitor and it behaves the same AFAICT.  It could be overheating - I've taken the side panel off and it's very dusty so I'll take the vacuum cleaner to it.  I get no output from the monitor connection on the MB so I presume that's been turned off in the settings.  I have backed up all my 3D printer designs onto a USB drive. 

There also seems to be a good part of a TB of astro images on the the second HDD.  It would take ages to back that up as the Win7 desktop doesn't have any USB3 ports and TeamViewer is no longer working.  If this is formatted NTFS as I presume I might still be able to mount it in my Linux Mint box.  I never use the optical drive these days so I reckon I can allocate the four SATA ports to the two SSDs, another for the 3TB HDD and the fourth for the 1TB drive form the Win desktop.  The Win 7 laptop should be able to take over all I used the desktop for.

Took the vacuum cleaner to the Win 7 desktop and sucked up pretty well all the dust including the heatsinks.  I took the graphics card out to clean it as I couldn't get at it properly in place.  The fan and cooling fins were well clogged up with dust!  The central processor heatsink and fan were also very dirty as were the PSU and case fans and grills. 

I have now connected the desktop up again and TeamViewer is now working again.  So I may have cured the problems.  Tomorrow I plan to take the Linux Mint desktop and give that a spring clean followed by adding the new 3TB HDD.  Unless the Windows desktop fails again I shall leave its Data HDD in it and copy the astro images off it and onto the 3TB drive in the Mint box via the 1Gb/s wired LAN.  That's a lot faster than USB.

I also want to set up my 6TB NAS drive in due course

Seems I've fixed the Windows desktop   Left it running overnight and it's still working fine   And TeamViewer is still connected and working fine

Spoke too soon!  TeamViewer dropped connection to Win desktop and now won't reconnect.  Looks like I shall be using the laptop instead after all...

After an overnight Windoze update I was able to install SketchUp and the extras I need and have it working.  So I think the W desktop can take a running jump

Beautiful sunny day and quite warm so I've taken the opportunity to get on with my outdoor job of fastening my fibre optic cable to the catenary cable   Took step ladder out and undid eyebolt from house and started wrapping spiral wrap from the garage end.  I have now completed the wrap and taking a break before reattaching the eyebolt and catenary to the house.

Catenary finished with eyebolt reattached to gable end frame and eyebolt at garage end tightened up.  There is a bit of a tangle of cable to be pulled up into the loft - I wasn't able to push it up.  Not actually tangled but curled - the cable needs untwisting.  Job for another day - that will do for today on that project I think unless I change my mind and decide to go up in the loft and sort it out.