Is it possible

that my computer's case isn't low profile but that the 3850 simply did not fit in the case? I cannot find any info about my computer online or on gateway's site that it is low profile.

it doesnt go down in the first section of the pcie slot. In fact even if I put it away from the pcie slot I cant get it to go down wither. The metal brackets and everything are the same length though that it came with.

No. It is the colorful long slot. Here are the pics of the inside of my system:
http://support.gateway.com/s/CASES [...] 7Riv.shtml

specifications:
http://support.gateway.com/s/pc/R/ [...] 84nv.shtml
http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/ [...] 4sp3.shtml

Ship the 9500gt back anyway. 4670 is a more powerful card to begin with.

So here I am getting the new 9500 gt low profile ddr2 delivered to me and I put it into my pci express slot and guess what?? Nothing happens (after I put in the plugs to the lcd of course). Just like with the normal 3870, just plain crappooola!!! So I start getting figity, start panicking, and thinking my computer isnt even designed for a pcie slot despite having one and my 4 yr old emachines will always be able to play games better (in fact it wasnt even low profile nor did it have power issues on a than a class 9800 pro so there is gateway for ya). And anyway here I start thinking to just sell this pos and not worth even bothering cause even if I replace the psu something else might wrong since everything is so low quality.

So I decide to take out the cables or molex to the hard drive and fan to see if the extra amps will make the card work and boot a screen up and I do it and still nothing happens. I than stop to think and am in panic mode so I plug in the hard drive while the computer is booting uP!!!! cause I am about to throw this piece of junk out my window (I mean my hair will literally grow gray within a day here). And I turn it off again and play with the bios some more disabling some crap and still the same thing happens (I cans e what happens because I keep having to switch the monitor switch from the 9500gt to onboard back and forth).

And anyway I decide to go for the hail marry and disable my cables to the cd rw/dvd rw to see if itll work just to see if it is in fact the psu and not anythign else. So than I plug it in and whalllaaa it works. I now have to resort to piracy cause the only way I will be able to play games is if I unplug my cd/dvd rw drive.

Thanks for all the help guys. I really appreciate being dupped by you and the extreme outer vision test.

actually I found out why it wasnt recognizing it. I did go online and donwload them and disabled the onboard via device manager. Its because it wasnt working to beign with. I made a mistake thinking it worked when i unplugged the cd romd rive but I had another plug to the onboard vga connected and the dvi at the same time so it was only reading the vga one to the onboard. it never even worked when I took out the molex to the cdrom drive. So now I dont know if any pcie cards will even work on this computer or fi it is just the psu thats the problem. The one good thing I found out is that my computer isnt low profile. I took out the 9800 pro from my old computer and it went right into the motherboard of my new one and if it wasnt an agp slot but a pcie on the 9800 pro it would have worked. Im thinking the 4870 didnt plug in because it occupies two slots or something. I compared the motherboards expansion slot sizes of my old computer that has the 9800 pro (emachines t3092) to this one and they both are about the same size. I dont know if I should just buy a new psu cause I dont know if thats the problem or if Im not doing something phsyically to the motherboard (like switch) or something. I mean it has a pcie slot x16 so it should work right?

well I want to learn and the best way to learn is to try.