E1705 7900GS problems- card?

I've enjoyed my E1705 so far with the 7900GS, but I think it is starting to die, and I'm just finding out why everyone complains about Dell Customer Support.

I bought the computer as a budget gaming notebook to take on the road, and it did find until recently. About 5-20 minutes into a game (WoW, AoC, Oblivion, Fallout 3, The Witcher, Warhammer online, etc) and even occasionally while browsing photos on the hard drive, I'll start to get artifacts- lines accross the screen; walls, branches, and other ingame objects also stretch out and have artifacts. Sometimes, the screen will just turn "plaid" (see pictures of screen below).

I've re-upped my warranty with return to depot so I could talk to customer service. Unfortunately, they don't seem to help.

Fixes I've tried:
- Drivers: nvidia drivers/dell drivers
- updated bios, updated games, etc
I've also put a box fan beside the laptop, run it at high speed, turned the heater off so the room temp is about 65 deg F-- this seems to give more more time between crashes.

Dell customer service tells me that this is a software problem caused because I'm trying to run games that the system wasn't designed for (never mind that they were working 2 years ago, and it also crashes while viewing photos...).

Whenever I call back, I keep getting frontline tech support that reinstalls the drivers by remote install and tells me that I shouldn't play games. They also want me to buy the $50 dell support package to solve my "software" issues.

Any ideas? Are there some magic words to get me in touch with someone that can REALLY help me?

 

First, I do not recommend blowing a fan at it because it may prevent the heat inside from coming out.

Now, it seems like you've already tried updating the drivers, it also seems that this only happens during gaming. If my assumptions are correct, then it looks like it might be a graphics card issue and I suggest running Dell's onboard diagnostics tool. Here are some instructions: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/deke/laptopsupport/manuals/d600/diag.htm

First it does some basic checks which could last up to half an hour. Afterwards you'll see a screen with four options, one of which is to do custom checks of components. Use this one to check your graphics card. In my case, I was able to use this program to determine my source of problems as my graphics card, and I highly recommend using Dell's diagnostics tool - it's one of Dell's better products.