Problems with Inspiron 1521 Video Card Problems?

First off my Laptop is nearly two years old. It is out of warranty (That expired 3/09). So any repairs I will have to do on my own.

I consider myself to be somewhat tech savvy and feel safe doing the work. Just need to know what to do.

Here is my problem:
Yesterday (around 5:00am local) My Laptop is working fine no problems, no slowdowns.

Yesterday (around Noon local) I get on my computer and it is very slow and laggy. I use the sidebar feature on vista and one of the apps shows my memory and CPU. It showed my CPU maxed out at 100%. Without ever slowing.
I feared virus, rootkit, etc so I did anti-virus scan, that came clean so I went for a second, third, fourth, fifth.... opinion... I used countless web based and trial virus scans from most of the major companies. All the scans came up clean. I did a vista "Reliability and Performance Monitor" test fearing some sort of hardware failure coming. That came back clear and fine.
Around 9:00pm local time, I was at wits end, I couldn't do anything with the computer. I was getting the install discs out and getting ready to format the HD. I signed on WoW to let my guildies know I wouldn't be around a couple of days and BLAM all is well on my laptop! I guess the threat of nuking the hard drive scared it into behavior modification!

This morning around 5:00am local. Laptop is still performing fine, I log onto WoW (World of Warcraft) to discover some very weird video problems. All of the other players are showing up BLACK. Like they are a shadow. Well I went through trying simple fixes on WoW. That didn't help. I downloaded and install the current ati video card driver: (9-8_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu). That didn't fix it, I went through everything that WoW told me to do to try and fix it, without any help at all.

My fear: My video card may be getting ready to die.

Is there any apps I can download and do a test on my system to find out what the problem is?

I know enough about my laptop that if the vid card dies then I have a nice new fancy paperweight and I don’t want this...

Any help?
( A side note, as I am typing this up, and I was using word to do a spell check, the laggy system is coming back too... )

 

Reinstall the operating system. Start over on a fresh slate.