"Villano, Paul" wrote:

 Paul, what you describe is a classic problem when video signals don't
 get to the monitor for some reason. Could be a bad card, mother board
or
 a bad connection.

 > I called Tech Support at Gateway.  They said the video card must be
 > loose and that I should try reseating it.<snip> got the gray
 > screen again except it momentarily switched to light blue as if
trying
 > to show the Windows screen.  <snip> back to gray and white
 > stripes.  You could see the hard drive chunking away, and it tries to
 > boot, but you can't see anything.
>
 I'll snip the rest of the message to preserve bandwith. One problem to
 watch out for is putting too much torque on a mother board when you're
 plugging stuff into slots. You can EASILY break a connection or the
 board itself with too much force. You may well have had a bad video
 board, which is why gateway had you try another slot.

 At this time, you may have both a broken board AND a bum video card;
 don't be too hard on gateway OR yourself. As price pressures on
 manufacturers has increased, motherboards have physically gotten
thinner
 and thinner -- costs less to manufacture. You've really got to watch
the
 motherboard as you're plugging boards into slots -- I've been known to
 use wood (disposable chopsticks no less) or plastic shims to keep from
 flexing a mother board too much.

 You can use off the shelf parts but why pay for something you don't
have
 to?

 Best regards,
 Jim Griffin

 --
 Prometheus was the first Beta Tester.
 Sisyphus was the Corinthian Systems Administrator.

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