Shawn, thank.
yes, i have done it without disabling, disabling, starting over...you know the drill :-D
in the mean time...while climbing around on the floor under the desk...i realized that one problem is my power supply. it's not adequate for the needs of the new card.
as it happens, my youngest left his (at the time) super desktop upstairs. while the cards, etc. are outdated, the power supply is awesome. i will swap it out today. it is the only thing i have not tried and was a suggestion on one of the geek boards. :-D
i'll update after i do that. once again, KISS may have struck me upside the head :evil: