Seems the BFG organization is closing down, and will not honor any "lifetime" warranties or repairs on any video products! Have found several Web links noting this. Some page links were dated more than 3 years ago!
Did note some references about the premium BFG video cards failing due to inferior or improper heat sink compound on the GPU!
Sent an Email to the Nvidia tech forum, requesting suggestions as to repair centers for the video card. Reply was that Nvidia only provides the chipsets, does not manufacture the video card. So I now have to seek out an independent repair service to see if the GTX280 cards are salvageable. Looks like I may have some expensive "bookends".

If the GTX460 suffers the same fate, then I may consider an AMD product. But this 'project' has cost me several hundred dollars more than intended.
Edit 06.10.14..
New video card arrived Monday afternoon, installed and working by 4 pm. Authentic EVGA driver downloaded and installed (216 MB!!). But looks like my "turbo" folding speed with the GPU is done. No advance in points for 8 hours running last night. Que sera sera.