I think my graphics card is fried

[paranoid guy]

Hi all,
Got a problem with my laptop the other day. Was running the laptop as normal when all of a sudden the screen went dark, then it started flashing on and off randomly every second or so. So I turned the laptop off and didn't use it until the next day. I figured the graphics card might just have overheated or something, that said, I wasn't running anything very graphics intensive when it happened. The next day, I turned on the laptop and got blue artifacts on the screen on boot-up and as windows was loading, and then where the user log in screen should have been, I just got a screen full of artifacts.
I rebooted in safe mode, disabled the graphics card and tried booting up again. This time I got the same artifacts right up until the user log in screen showed up, which was fine (I'm guessing the on-board graphics didn't kick in until this point or something?).
Since then I've tried installing a fresh copy of the graphics card drivers (bit of a long shot I know) which hasn't seemed to fix it. I've a couple of questions which I'm hoping one of you knowledgeable folk can answer:
Could this have been caused by anything other than the graphics card?
If it's the graphics card, could it have been caused by anything more simple (and easier to fix) than the card actually frying?
Is there any way to check what happened besides/before actually opening the laptop up? (it's outside warranty anyway, so I don't mind opening it up it if you think it's worth trying to fix)

The laptop itself:
Is a HP Pavilion dv8333ea which is about 3 and a half years old, so at this age I suppose stuff like this is to be expected...
Laptop specs are here.

Any/all help required/appreciated

 

[EXCellR8]

the only other thing that could cause this other than the graphics card is the screen itself. laptop screen failure is fairly common, maybe even more so than onboard adapter failure, and can be fixed in a lot of cases. no promises though. the only thing you can really do is try reinstalling the drivers and since you've done that already i'm inclined to point at a failing display.

 

[mailpup]

In three and a half years it has probably accumulated a good amount of dust inside which would have clogged the fan and cooling system. It sounds like the overheating damage is already done. Open it up and confirm this. If it's not that bad then perhaps it's the display as EXCellR8 said. Either way you might be looking at a new laptop.

 

[paranoid guy]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll open the laptop up as soon as I get a chance and I'll let you know what I find.