N81VG crash problem

Been having an issue recently. One of three things has been happening randomly to my laptop (seems to happen more when on battery power, but happens when plugged in as well)
1) Screen, mouse and keyboard freeze, nothing works at all, have to restart.
2) Screen instantly turns half black, half gray and flickers
3) Screen goes completely blank and alternates between solid colors every few seconds

This has randomly been happening 2-3 times per day over the past week. Often times when I leave it on for awhile and come back it's doing the flashing freeze. Not overly hot and not doing any intensive stuff. Usually happens while surfing the web. Seems to be increasing in how often it happens.

I'm no expert user, but I take good care of my computer: defrags, optimized services, virus checks, cleaned up files, keep fans clean and reformat every once in awhile.

Any idea where this could stem from? Is a part going bad? Any chance reformatting would fix it (don't want to right now but could if necessary)? If it is a part, which would it be? Time to get a new laptop?

Here are the specs
Asus N81-Vg (about 1.5 years old)
2.53ghz core 2 duo
4gb ram
Nvidia GT 120M
320gb 7200 RPM HD

 

My first guess would be a video driver acting up. You could try updating your drivers or reverting back to an older version if you just updates. My N50 didn't seem to like the previous version of the verde drivers. I got a few "solid color crashes", nothing to write home about, over the last few months. Updates to the latest verde driver and everything is peachy once again.

 

Thank you for the response. I tried a different driver. Same problem, crashed to a dark blue screen with a flickering line in the middle within an hour.

I have been seeking help elsewhere and was told to use Furmark, Prime95 and memtest86 to see if there are problems with videocard, processor, ram or cooling. I'm currently working on doing those tests.

Only thing sticking out so far is that my GPU is running at 60-61C when idle. Seems a tiny bit high? It is a laptop though.

Think the above recommendations will be useful in determining the problem? Any other steps I should take? Think I might just have to reformat.

 

Your GPU temp does indeed seem a bit high. Have you used canned air to dust the vents lately?

 

Actually realized I was running one of the stress tests in the background. Actually idling in the 40's. Did a dust cleaning just for kicks as well.

After a massive indepth cleaning, defragging, etc. I think it may have stopped. Will have to wait and see. Thank you.