Vostro 1720 - Horiztonal Lines = LCD Failure?

Hey everyone, newbie to the forums here!

I was wondering if you could give me a hand with a really irritating problem I'm having. I own the Dell Vostro 1720 (with the nVidia 9600GS GPU option, with anti-glare 1440x900 17" widescreen), and have done for a mere three weeks or so.

Basically, I love the laptop, and is perfect for playing all the games I don't want to leave behind when I go to university at the end of this week! But a few days ago, I returned to the laptop to find that the screen had horizontal white lines through the middle section of the screen. At first I thought it might be a GPU failure, and therefore did a restart - however, on the restart (Dell logo during POST check boot, etc.), the lines were still there, at the same intensity, and at the same resolution (i.e, they didn't change size at different screen resolutions). Also, I've tried attaching an external display, and the lines DO NOT reproduce on the external display. This instantly pointed me to some kind of failure with the LCD, which after three weeks of ownership, didn't seem right at all!

I haven't thrown the laptop around or anything like that, which is why it surprised me at first. I read around and heard such things could be down to static in the screen (?), so I took out the battery and the charger and left it idle overnight. When I woke up and turned it on the next morning, the lines had faded - still there, but at a much lower intensity, and (more importantly), much less distracting! So I thought it would be a problem that would 'solve itself' overtime.

When I leave the laptop, I shut the lid to save the power consumption from the display, etc...when I did this the day after I left the laptop idle overnight, and when I thought the problem was going away, after opening the lid again the lines reappeared, stronger than ever - much stronger than when I first turned it on. This happens every time I test it.

Since I'm going away to university on Sunday, I really really would like some kind of quick solution, but I'm wondering if that's a possibility. I really really do like this laptop, so if anyone can help, it'd be most appreciated! I normally do a lot of computer repair work for friends regarding OS issues and desktop computers, but never ever looked into laptop hardware replacement!

I've attached some pictures of the problem, so you can see exactly what's up!

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2121/pict0017xz.jpg

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9110/pict0020ao.jpg

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/4179/pict0021ba.jpg

P.S That's Windows XP installed, I just use the Windows 7 RTM wallpaper

Hope ANYONE can help, anything will be appreciated!

Thanks