Well, I tried several suggestions and finally ran a race w/out a
screen freeze. I fully opened the case and put a house fan on it,
updated all drivers, and even underclocked the video card (didn't know
why since everything else worked fine...but hey I was desperate).
Even a call to tech support failed to provide an answer.
After all was said and done, when I tried D3D mode, the screen freezes
went away.
whew,
TR