i9300 Gfx card dead? Gives a black screen after the xp spalsh screen

Hey everyone and first let me say thanks befrore hand for the help.

My problem is this, I was browsing the internet a day ago and I was on a "COLLEGE" website so i know this is not due to a virus. At this time all of a suden my screen went black.

I powered the laptop off and turned it back on, The Dell logo appeared but the screen was fuzzy and had some "tearing" i dont really know what to call it but it doesnt look right. Kind of like an old VCR playing videos. The screen then whent black after the windows xp splash screen. The laptop still boots to windows but it does not display anything.

I booted into safe mode, everything functions correctly and the way it's supposed to. I then booted into VGA mode same thing everything functions and works the way it is supposed to. I also ran some virus scans just incase, nothing was found.

Whilist in safe mode i changed the resolution down to 800 x 600 and still no luck after booting in regular mode.

In VGA mode i tryed to change resolution and the screen displayed some blue fuzzy lines then whent black.

After this I booted back into safe mode and done severeral diffrent System Restores at diffrent dates. Still no luck

After going through all this I am assuming this is a GFX card problem. The laptop is about 3 years old and ive played games pretty hard on it ever since. The card has defenitly gone through some some stress. Can anyone confirm this?

I know that the i9300 sells for about 400 working, and i checked on ebay for a card that is a whopping 180 bucks. Id just assume buy a new laptop. Then sell the i9300 laptop for parts because everything else works fine. Or maybe buy the card swich it out and sell it for a price. Maybe there is a way to fix it i dont know. can anyone help?

Lastly, i thought i would add that when i check the bios the card is recognized and it displays all the correct info for the card. IS there a way to tell for 100% that the card is bad?

Thoughts, Ideas, Comments????

Thanks a lot everyone.

I thought about that and i will still try it but since i the screen looks normal in VGA and safe mode doesnt that constitute the LCD to be in good shape? and working properly??

Thanks i have the factory driver for the card ill see if it works out

So are you suggesting that my current driver is bad? I have'nt tried the factory driver yet because i havent been home all day.

So I Booted into safe mode and uninstalled the driver. My laptop then "Booted in normal mode to the desktop"" I installed the factory driver, restarted the computer and same problem. Black screen

Does this explain anything????

I dont have a VGA cable readily available as of now or i would check but my display is fine when I am in safe mode and It also works fine when i am in Normal mode without a gfx card driver.

However there is one thing that remains constant. No matter what i do when the gfx card driver is installed or uninstalled The Dell splash screen and windows xp screen always have blue distorted lines going through them and it gets worse right before the laptop gets to the desktop then it goes back to normal and looks fine.

Can anything be gathered from this????

Thanks a lot for all the help guys

Here is a example of what it looks like. It IS NO WAY NEAR THIS Bad JUST 1 or 2 LINES... and the lines are blue its not all different colors

hey again qhn thanks for your input buddy, But how can it be that the lcd is failing if it looks normal while im in safe mode....and in normal mode without graphics card drivers? Im thinking its either the card....or somthing in the os

Thanks again i will try the external monitor asap Im in college so my vga is back at home about 3 and a half hours a way. You think i can get away with going to good old Walmart buying a cable testing it then taking it back ROFL

Well i went to a friends house and hooked it up to his monitor, I got

"SYNC OUT OF RANGE"

......So its the video card???

Hey qhn thanks for the replies again bud,

Something strange happened last night, So i booted to safe mode uninstalled my vid card driver, went to laptopvideo2go and downloaded a driver from there, I used Driver cleaner pro before installing the new laptopvideo2go driver. While in normal mode i installed the new driver, Was prompted to reboot so i done so, I then noticed the Dell Logo and Windows xp splash screen did not have any distortion like the above picture so i thought great its fixed I got the blue screen of death.......

I then rebooted uninstalled that driver reinstalled my factory driver that came with the laptop and it booted and looked as sharp and good as it ever did. I went to bed happy last night, I woke up this morning turned it on....what happens?

The screen distorition is back and it doesnt boot i get the black screen again........................................................

So i wonder, Is the video card bad, is there something wrong with the os when installing these drivers, or do i need to find that "magic driver"

Bout ready to pull my hair out with this one