Games crash to desktop, Direct Input problems me thinks...

[slowintrepid]

Ok so I got myself a pimp new gaming computer, the only problem is.... I can't play any games....(sorta)

basically, when ever I try to play, F.E.A.R. Battlefield 2, or Scarface the screen goes black and crashes to my desktop.

the only game that gives me an error is scarface, and when I click on more info the file new is dinput8.dll also when I open the DXDIAG tool it says there is an errror with direct input and gives me an option to turn it off, if I do DX tool loads fine, if I don't then it crashes (screen does not go black)

so I'm thinking there must be a link between what the DX tool said, and the dinput8.dll file

I have the latest drivers and updates for everything (including the game) I also tried downloading the .dll file from some site that hosts .dlls and putting it in the windows/system folder (which didn't have the file in the first place, but that's what the instructions said to put it) then I restarted, and the computer behaves the exact same way.

I've also tried reinstalling DX but that didn't help either, I think I might have not done it properly but I could be wrong (I just ran the installer from the CD that came with the game but it was really quick and didn't prompt for a restart)

also HL2 and company of heros do play VERY well.

any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

here are my system specs

Quad Intel Xeon @ 2.66
1 gig of ECC PC5700 RAM
Radeon x1900 xt vid card (catalyst 6.9)
3 Internal Sata drives
Windows XP SP2 (with all updates installed)

[glc]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en