Just to let you all know what happened.
They have a 3 year warranty on the video cards and I ended up sending
the video card back to msi. it wasn't easy to find that there is
'another' msi based in california that takes care of such issues.
their tech support is dead but I did get someone on the phone that
gave me an rma number. after about a month I finally called them to
find out what happened with my card. a guy over the phone suggested I
would upgrade to a better card and that's what I did. at this point
I'm waiting for this new card which has better specs than the original
anyway. which makes me somewhat happy after a 3 months bitter
experience with msi.
so at the end I wanted to thank you for your input and suggestions
although it came out to be a half burnt video card.
thanx again.
Jack