Hi,

>if any of the self-tests complain, a decstation will stay at the chevron
>instead of autobooting. do _both_ machines give you the message from the 
>pmagb-b you mention? that is the video card complaining about something 

Yes, both machine give the exact same message.

>(probably something unimportant, but nonetheless, its something). Your 
>video card(s) might just be getting flaky. One thing to check, sort of my 
>mantra with DECstations, is dust and dirt. If it's been a while since the 

I have the feeling that something is not quite kosher with these
pmag-b cards. In some windows, mainly black letters over gray
background (e.g. mozilla) part of the letters don't show up clearly,
as if they were partially erased, something that didn't occur
before.

>machines have been cleaned, it's worth it to put 20 min to cleaning
>them out well. if you have a vacuum with a soft brush-attachment, that is

I did clean the connectors, but no avail.

Thanks for your help.

Dan