while fussing with it I decided to check the voltage at the horz out fuse, was around 12v IIRC, now its more like 7.5 right on the money per the schematic
during the intial setup I checked the blue screen purity (after getting the red as good as I could) the green was good but the blue was TERRIBLE.. I tried turning up the drive which helped but it was not just weak but more blue/green.
during a prelime setup of the center convergence I noticed the blue was way out, so I tweeked the blue lateraly, bingo blue not only converged but overall was much brighter. seems the blue lateral must have been causing the really bad purity also.
all this is just me messing about, I know I need to do a proper setup using the instructions which are a lot more complicated than what I have seen in other later roundies with later convergence boards.