Hello,
I do software troubleshooting and usually manage okay, but this problem is
slightly out of the scope of what I normally do......suspect *possible*
hardware relationship with this problem, so I am posting here.

Customer's system is one month old and experiencing this problem since
purchase:
- her video display suddenly increases contrast severely, making viewing
very difficult; sometimes she can play with the contrast control and
manage, but this is not an ideal solution and the display still does not
look normal
- restarting machine solves problem temporarily, but problem usually
manifests itself a short time later
- problem shows up inconsistently, i.e. doesn't matter what programs she is
working with at the time, whether she is printing or not, etc.
- solutions tried so far: reinstalling video drivers; reduced hardware
graphics accelerator control slide; moving color resolution down to 16 bit

Display adapter info:
- ATI Tech Advanced 3D Rage, chip type Mach 64GT, software says version 4.02
- monitor Daytek 1531-D

Using Window95B.
Search of monitor manufacturer's web site says, for "unstable display"
troubleshooting suggestion is: "check pin assignments and signal timmings"
(I assume they mean "timings"?) Not sure how to do this. This is what the
manual says, verbatim.

Search of ATI web site says software is up to ver. 5. I will install this
new driver on my next visit, but before I go to this customer again, I was
wondering if there is anything else I might do, if this doesn't help? The
refresh is currently set to "adapter default." In this case, would
"optimal" be better or worse? Does this sound like software or hardware
related, or do you need more info?

Thanks for any assistance. Btw the vendor of this system seems co-operative
(he builds the systems himself, I don't know this guy personally), so if I
try all the software things I can think of and nothing helps, he is willing
to do a replacement. Meaning, replace the WHOLE system!  Customer is having
another *intermittent* problem too (lord help me), relating to her printer
and an additional port she had installed. Won't get into that one here
because I doubt there is any relationship and I'm 99% sure it's a software
thing, but it seems that these intermittent things can sometimes take so
long to figure out, it's easier for the vendor to replace the machine.
Seems pretty drastic to me, but I guess it's due to the amount of time it
might take to fix these two problems.

Susan Sutherland