Help diagnosing an issue with my Vostro 1400

Ok, my laptop is screwed up. When I start it, the screen will show multiple copies of the bios screen, about 6, with the ones on the right being cut off. There are also a couple of lines going through the screen. The color depth is also very low, I think it is only showing 16 colors or something. I can still make it into an OS, but after a while it ends up freezing.
The laptop has the 8400m gs card in it. Do you think it is a video card issue? Or maybe the motherboard? I was just trying to sell this **** thing too. The warranty expired a little over a month ago. I was going to renew it, but I just got married and am flat broke. This sucks as my laptop was my only means of getting online and now I am on an ancient desktop.

 

It is probable that the nVidia GPU died, probably the same issue that has been widely reported on.

I'd give Dell a call anyway.

 

Do you have any sources i could see about the GPUs dying?

 

Also, if I can't get any help from dell, is there any way I could find a replacement card and install it?

 

not without purchasing an new mobo...

 

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx

 

So....
I called Dell and they were very helpful and sent out a tech to replace my MB and my laptop was running great. It only took about 40 minutes on the phone and the tech actually listened to me when I told him what the issue was and that there was no point in reloading the drivers.
Unfortunately, a week and a half after having the parts replaced, my laptop is now completely dead. It will not boot up at all. When I press the power button nothing turns on and the LED for power only illuminates for a few seconds before turning off. Did I get a ****ty MB replacement? Could the teach have messed something up? I was in the process of trying to sell this laptop, but now I am screwed. Do you think Dell will be helpful even though I am out of warranty? Hopefully they will see that this is obviously related considering how recently they just replaced the MB. I definitely know that I couldn't have done anything to mess it up.
Blah!

 

I bet its a combination of the tech messing up and dell giving you a crappy mobo.

When Dell replaces the mobos/gpu's... they are REFURBISHED, which means theres probably something wrong with them...

 

Try re-seating the memory. You still have LED's going, that's one good sign.

Greg

 

I thought of checking the memory, but even if it was not properly seated, would that prevent the computer from even entering bios?