SOLVED: Thanks to all who piled in with their good advice. I hooked up my old (50lb) CRT and it showed the same display problems, so I figured it was the video card. Got lucky, found a replacement (the 7200GS) cheap at our local Micro Center and all is now well again. BTW, the "beta" driver I'm using is the one from rpmforge, and it is now obsolete compared to the latest and greatest from nvidia (173.08-1 beta vs. 173.14.12), so I may put in a request over there to update.... Salut! mhr