I'm gonna try the DBAN program and see what happens.
I popped the case open about 5 minutes after I got it home. It has 3 open PCI slots and an open PCIe slot, so it's stupid that Gateway forbids you to open her up. I would have called their customer service, but I don't feel like hiring a translator.
My last hope is that I have a corrupt driver or old frakked-up XP update that the recovery didn't get at.
Isn't there some free app. that tests your RAM for problems?