Q: during startup grey screen decending and a message "you need to restart your computer"

Ogelthorpe, slow response due to local weather sorry ....

anyway I tried 3/4 time to do safe start-up and it was a no go..out-come was the same as the original problem

any further suggestion, or am I headed for the Apple  service center.

Thanks for your help --any further suggestions?

heres the update , am a bit confused but happy!

I tried booting up from the DVD and pressing C ...no change in the situation

I tried booting up from the DVD and pressing D (as suggested on the fine print on the DVD to try the hardware Test...and the test screen appeared.....I went thru that process and got a responce that all hardward passed and appeared to be fine ( copied the panic report-just in case any one would want to see it ) ..thought about it fr a while and then decided to see what happend when te button to restart was pushed------VIOLA !!!! the whole system popped up and my main screen appeared...just like normal  !!! went to the Disk Utility and ran a couple of those tests--they showed no issues... ? !!! so I went back to my Finder screen and ..............tried to do a restart..and everything came out just as usual/meaning normal start-up........I think I'm back in business!

Thanks for the help!!!

going to read some more of the Community responses to this problem-seems that its fairly common occurance...just would like to understand it more! ..so I don't repeat the issue; if possible .

would seeing my "panic report" be of any use ??

will add it FYI (wish I understood what I'm reading !)

Interval Since Last Panic Report:  12623246 sec

Panics Since Last Report:          1

Anonymous UUID: 0E19A4D1-08A8-45B3-B6FF-A899C3C93B0C

Sat Jun  2 00:32:24 2012

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A7BED): Kernel trap at 0x00000000, type 14=page fault, registers:

CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x00000000, CR3: 0x00e0c000, CR4: 0x00000660

EAX: 0x08e64804, EBX: 0x08ee4c04, ECX: 0x00000015, EDX: 0x08e9a004

CR2: 0x00000000, EBP: 0x7d547628, ESI: 0x09bd3204, EDI: 0x00000000

EFL: 0x00010246, EIP: 0x00000000, CS:  0x00000008, DS:  0x09bd0010

Error code: 0x00000010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x7d5473f8 : 0x12b0e1 (0x4555b4 0x7d54742c 0x133238 0x0)

0x7d547448 : 0x1a7bed (0x45e568 0x0 0xe 0x45dd24)

0x7d547528 : 0x19e517 (0x7d547540 0x9bdd604 0x7d547628 0x0)

0x7d547538 : 0x0 (0xe 0x48 0x7d540010 0x865d0010)

0x7d547628 : 0x866ed6f4 (0x8e9a004 0x8ee4c04 0x0 0x0)

0x7d547918 : 0x86665fd1 (0x8e9a004 0x9394004 0x0 0x100006)

0x7d547978 : 0x86597d64 (0x8e9a004 0x9394004 0x0 0x0)

0x7d547b28 : 0x8658ef66 (0x0 0x52e0f0 0xd3000001 0x97cde000)

0x7d547b78 : 0x8659042f (0x8e90800 0x9088200 0x0 0x4)

0x7d547bc8 : 0x8659050f (0x8e90800 0x9bcfb80 0x8e90800 0x1)

0x7d547c08 : 0x77727139 (0x8e90800 0x1 0x0 0x0)

0x7d547c68 : 0x77720940 (0x8e90800 0x5 0x5 0x8e90800)

0x7d547c98 : 0x40c515 (0x8e90800 0x969ea68 0x969ea68 0x0)

0x7d547ce8 : 0x437535 (0x8e90800 0x969ea68 0x969ea68 0x0)

0x7d547d48 : 0x18c8aa (0x8e90800 0x969ea68 0x0 0x0)

0x7d547db8 : 0x12d165 (0x8f38b78 0x9468b90 0x7d547df8 0x11ee04)

            Backtrace continues...

      Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):

com.apple.NVDAResman(5.1.8)@0x8658d000->0x867b9fff

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.5)@0x77734000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.4)@0x774d0000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.5)@0x77718000

com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.5)@0x77718000->0x77733fff

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.4)@0x774d0000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: WindowServer

Mac OS version:

9A3129

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 9.0.0: Thu Oct 11 19:23:39 PDT 2007; root:xnu-1228~3/RELEASE_I386

System model name: MacBookPro3,1 (Mac-F4238BC8)

Grant, sorry for the slow response....appreciate the follow-up on your behalf !

a couple days ago I went poking around on the Apple support sute and ran across a page from Apple addressing my grey screen issue and I read thru knowing we had already tried a couple of the things they suggested...then I got to resetting the PRam  (I think thats right) and I thought what the heck so on start up held the P,R,apple option just after start-up........and all came on and stayed so ...I tried a restart and it all came up fine ......now 2 days later ...all seems OK ---still  ! and I've been careful about what I do..but all seems to be working correctly ...I'm surprised and yet I'm wanting to know if this problem is still there and could come back...otherwise I a happy pup that my laptop seems to be well again and I don't have to road trip a coupe hours to th apple store or ship it away to see if it can be "saved"

Thanks again

Oh by the way the distorted video item you added---no problems showing with this --that I can tell !