thanks ken. i'm a pretty common sense, check the basics and go by
process of elimintation first kind of guy.

i have a couple of more physical things i want to check before I start
swapping ICs and such.

this morning before i left for work i took another look at the
mainboard just to see what's socketed and what's not... i see a few
boards in there I want to pull and reseat as well as some of the
connections.

before i can really see anything though, I'm going have to figure out a
way to get 4-5 years worth of dust off the board without simply blowing
it all over the place.

maybe one of those little vacuums with the brushes.

yeah.. before i order $70 worth of ICs i'm going to get in there and
check the basics again.

thanks.
k.