nvidia nvs 160m - broken?

on wednesday, i started to have problems with my computer. vista experience index - desktop performance for aero went down from 5.2 to 3.3. but i didn't care. on friday, my computer went down with blue screen. i tried to reinstall graphic drivers in safe mode. after about 5 restarts, it was ok and i was able to boot to vista in standard mode.
but today it was the same -blue screen and restart. after restart no bios progress screen appeared. after next restart i tried to check bios, but in bios - artefacts on the screen (white and yellow lines on the screen). i think, the graphic card is down. or anything else?
because i can't understand that i safe mode everything is all right every time. only when i installed drivers and try to start windows in standard mode - it is not possible. but on the other hand - artefacts in bios were very strange

 

I could be wrong, but I think the 160m is embedded on the motherboard and not a part that you can easily replace.

Have you checked your temperatures? Artifacts may be a sign of that... Maybe a fan has stopped working in the system. In any case, it sounds like it's time to contact Dell customer support.

 

If you're getting artifacts in BIOS, and they're replicable on an external monitor, it is indeed most likely a GPU failure. In this case, you should clearly call Dell and have them replace your motherboard. Haven't heard of any failures with the NVS 160M yet, but given Nvidia's track record, yours could be the first.

 

I can confirm that the Nvidia card is embedded on the motherboard. To replace my GPU they had to replace the whole motherboard.