well, you are right. my first ppc card had lots of troubles too but this one runs fine and dont forget, I had it running for a full year without any problems. I do have a later 060 model.
Sorry, I should have paid closer attention to your signature!
The joys of classic hardware, at times... The problems I had drove me nuts. Nuts enough to buy another PPC card just to see if the problem would go away. (I'm using a 1D.4 motherboard)
I hope you get to the bottom of it. Without suggesting the obvious (which you've already mentioned), I'm not sure what to suggest.
Steve