Artifacts, more artifacts, then black screen

[kapolski]

Hi i've spent the best part of today trying to do some research and can't seem to find any specific answers, so here's the problem and i hope someone can lend a hand.

I'm running a dell xps m170 laptop with xp pro sp2. I was playing half-life 2 the other day, with i8kfangui with fans forced to run at max speed. After about 15minutes of gameplay a couple of artifacts popped up on the screen, which rapidly turned into an entire screen of artifacts followed by an unresponsive system. I forced a power off. Upon restarting:

bios load screen- fine
windows load - fine, then artifacts then i think bsod (can't tell very badly distorted)
tried again
bios load screen - distorted
safe mode screen - badly distorted
etc.
finally, cpu starts up, you can hear the fans initialise, you can hear hdd start boot then stops, all this whilst screen is black, if i leave it for a while the screen goes solid white
I've plugged the laptop into a monitor via analog and digital and nothing still

I am no expert but i gather the gpu is fried, now my dilemna is; how can i check this is the case, if i am 100% sure then i'll try and get a replacement card they're not that cheap : S, if not is there any other way out of this?

I took 2 pics i can post them if they help or clarify anything if you need me to.

Thank you in advance for any help!

[jbennet]

generally a new graphics card in a laptop = a new motherboard (as there usually integrated) = a new laptop

[kapolski]

that's the thing, this system uses a discrete card rather than an integrated solution, i've had a look and the card can definitely be removed, that's why i'm asking if my gpu is definitely dead, if so i'll try and buy a replacement, i did see one on ebay.

Here's the link to removing the gpu:

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsm170/en/sm/video.htm

The system had the Geforece go 6800 ultra and the go 7800 GTX available so they both should fit.

So do you reckon the current card is a loss?

thank you for your quick reply

[jbennet]

i would say so. Sounds like it overheated and fried. The same thing happened to me on a Desktop PC when i overclcoked a card too far

[kapolski]

Sorry to hear about your OC'd card hope that wasn't too expensive...
I've just had another look at the machine, looks like the gpu fan is dead, when the machine powers on the fans normally spin at max rpm whilst the bios loads then revert to normal, the gpu fan doesn't start at all.
Would a fan failure prevent a boot and/or disable the gpu?
I'm hoping i might get lucky here and just replace the fan motor rather than the gpu : )

[jbennet]

maybe. I know that on some desktop motherboards a non-functioning CPU fan will prevent a boot

[kapolski]

i see, well i'll try and get hold of a fan motor and see what happens.
I'll post up when i do.
Thank you again for your help and speedy replies : )