Thanks for the vga silencer tip. I"ll look into that. In the meantime, since I was going bonkers, I put a drop of oil on the bearings and that fixed it...for now.
there are better cooling systems which are quieter and work better than stock cooling
although you don't want to pay too much for one, sometimes they can cost more than a new card. in this case it is better off to get a new card, like a 9600