Did my laptop's video card just die?

I'm running an HP Pavilion dv6500 notebook with Vista as my OS.



My video card is an NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS



I've had this laptop for a little over 2 years now and I was playing World of Warcraft today when suddenly all the game's textures started getting pink fuzzy snow and a lot of purple blotches started appearing in the terrain.



I exit WoW and restart my comp and the problem still continues. My desktop has two green bars stretched vertically across it, and pink fuzz is flickering on my screen. When I open firefox, most pages are bright pink/purple in color.



Should I cash in for a new video card? Is it worth it? I know it will require lots of disassembly.



Oh and by the way, I updated my video drivers a couple days prior to this happening =/



Please help...thank you.|||It definitely sounds like it. HP computers are known for this problem. Check with HP if the warranty covers it (HP extended some warranty coverage because of the high failure of the NVIDIA video cards). In my opinion, it isn't worth it to buy a new motherboard to repair the computer. I would rather buy a second hand laptop off of eBay.



Good luck.|||Based on your description, the video card is going bad. You can tell when the display artifacts, or gives you vertical or horizontal colored bars. Often times, it will always be there. Meaning it will appear during the BIOS (startup) and once you reach the desktop as well.



As for whether it's worth it to go for a new video card, it all depends. If you're still within the manufacturer's warranty or have an extended warranty from your place of purchase, you can send out the laptop for repair.