No progress on finding a solution yet.
I did break down and drop some cash on a new video card.
"ASUS CuCore Series EAH5770 CuCore/2DI/1GD5 Radeon HD 5770 1GB"
Old card GPU: ATI Radeon X1950XT
New card GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770
It should arrive in the next couple of days.
I'll post if the video card upgrade does the trick. If not...expensive lesson. :-/
~Pete