GPU broken?

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300. I had it for less then a year before it stopped working. One day when I was playing World of Warcraft all of a sudden the screen froze. I couldn't get out of it (ctrl+alt+del) so I restarted it. Everything seemed okay till I tried playing WoW again. I got an error message to install direct x drivers. I reinstalled the drivers and tried playing again and I kept getting the same error message. A few restarts later I couldn't even get past the windows loading screen and there were lines across the screen. The only thing that comes to my mind is that the video card burned out. What do you guys think happened and is it possible to fix it?

To make things even more complicated I bought the the laptop through ebay brand new. All the information on the laptop is under the guy who I bought it from. When I tried getting help from dell I had to have his information in order for them to help me. So no help from dell. I tried contacting the guy I bought it from but no response from him. What alternatives do I have if it's fixable or even to get the problem diagnosed?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

Looks to me like a fault of the graphics card (Video RAM most probably, or the GPU). You can also see horizontal lines in the screen due to a LCD malfunction, but according to your description, it seems unlikely (since it started while running WOW then the directX / Windows errors etc..). If you have a dedicated nVidia card then you can replace it but unfortunately you can’t replace integrated Intel adaptor (have to replace the whole motherboard).

If the notebook is still under warranty, then try your best to get hold of the guy who sold the notebook, because replacing the VGA card is not cheap!