i am running a 2-year old gateway pc with xp media center (see specs below). i have an ati x1650 pro 512mb video card and a syncmaster wide-screen lcd monitor.

last night i was playing world of warcraft when the picture froze but the sound continued. after about a minute, i got a blue screen saying in effect that an ati driver got caught in a loop.

i shut down the machine. restarted and got the white on black text (i can never remember what that is called) prior to windows boot. however, no windows boot followed. after a few minuted, i shut down and restarted. this time i got nothing on the monitor.

i was original not sure if it was the monitor or the video card, so i disconnected the monitor from the card. the monitor immediately displayed a "no signal" message on the screen. so i assume the monitor is fine and it's the video card that has died.

my two questions ....

1. any agreement on my belief that it is the video card that has died and not something else in the pc? i have upgraded functioning video cards before (i went from an ati x1300 to this x1650 a year ago) but never had one die on me.

2. any suggestions for a replacement card? i haven't been looking so i don't know what's out there. know that i play WoW and second life on this machine regularly.

thanks in advance.