Thanks for all your responses.

The Driver I am using is from Dell not nVidia. I will try windows default. I am considering blowing the entire installation and starting over. Here is what I did last night for reference...

I was stuck updating a core accouting system so I got out the Dell and lowered the video resolution down to the lowest possible.

I loaded Diablo and played for an hour and a half. Got my Paladin up 3 levels with NO issues. Hmmm. So I happily exited and still nothing. Hmmmm. Then I needed to do some work and set my XP video slider back to the resolution I use and hit the apply button.

BAM

So I reboot and change the slider and it works. Now what does that tell me? Nothing exept maybe the game is just not compatable with my video driver even though I am using Direct x 9?

Oh and my "little" laptop has a GeoForce video, 512 Ram and over a 1 ghz processor. It should be able to handle older games like Diablo 2 and Half Life. Heck I used to play half life on a 3dfx and 333 mhz.

I could buy the over heating story if the damn thing didn't lock up right away on the video test that comes with diablo 2, even after a cold boot.

I'll go over this whole thread again and double check everything but I am ready to chalk this up as... one of those things that just sucks... live with it and get another game.

Here is some more details

General
Dell Latitude c840
mobil intel pentium
4 - m CPU 1.80 Ghz
789 Mhz
128 MB Ram (hmm thought I had more?)

Vid
GeoForce4 440 Go
IRQ 11 Bios: 4.17.00.55.c1
TV encoder type: integrated (MV)
AGP 4x 32mb (not much I agree)
this screen also reports direct x 8.1 or greater.

Driver details say:

Date 2.10.2003 driver version 4.2.5.8