Serious Gradient Problems

I am currently using Photoshop CS2 9.0, and am building a website template for my World of Warcraft guild. I am using several gradient effects for the page, and at first the gradient tool behaved as it should: smooth colour, no banding. I then closed the program for a few moments, and resumed work, only to find that the gradient tool now produced marked banding without my making any changes to settings. No amount of blurring, noise, smudging, or layer effects will reduce or eliminate the banding. I have tried everything I know how to try and fix the issue, and nothing has worked.

Help! Does anyone know of any way to reset the tool effectively, or know a technique to disguise the banding?

If you want to reset everything in photoshop, hold ctrl+alt+shift as soon as you open photoshop (before the loading screen) to delete the settings file. That should fix your problem.