I think I fried my video card...:(

System specs: ASUS W3J with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 video card.

Short version:
I think my video card overheated, now my graphics cut out within two to three minutes of booting. Sometimes it cuts out before the boot sequence even finishes. The longer I wait for it to cool off, the longer it lasts the next time. I've reseated it and cleared out all the dust, but to no avail. Is there anything I can do to salvage it outside of getting a new card?

Long version:
I was playing Fallout 3 in Windows XP when it crashed and ATI Catalyst Control Center announced that it had also crashed. Then, after a few moments the screen filled with vertical lines. I rebooted, got a black screen of nothing, so turned it back off and let it cool down. When I booted back into Windows everything seemed to be going OK until suddenly the screen filled with vertical lines again. I tried booting into safe mode, but the problem repeated itself.

I unscrewed and opened up my notebook, and sure enough the video card was hot as hell. The heatsink, vents and chip itself were all pretty much free of dust, so that wasn't the problem. When I took out the card to reseat it, part of it seemed stuck. I'm not that hardware savvy so I'm not sure what part it was, but I'm pretty sure it was the processor itself. It was a little square labeled 'ATI' and when I peeled it out I saw that it had been stuck to a square of what looked like a thin metallic sticker on the motherboard. I'm not sure what this was, perhaps thermal paste? In any case, the stickiness was somewhat worrisome, as if some component had melted.

Anyway, I reseated it, rebooted, but it still cut out after a few minutes. I got it to last long enough to uninstall the video drivers and use the default ones in case it was a software problem, but that didn't help either. Sometimes instead of vertical lines, the screen would give me a pretty lights/fireworks show of fascinating pixel patterns. Sinister yet beautiful, like the final artistic stroke of a dying painter.

Now I'm stuck with a notebook whose video doesn't stay alive long enough for me to do anything. Is my video card completely totaled? My computer's 4 years old going on 5 now, so I'm not sure if it's worth replacing the video card.

 

Time to stuff it in the oven.

 

Buy some thermal paste and reapply it where the video card is. If that doesn't help, try uninstalling all drivers and running with Standard VGA. You won't be able to run games, but most other things will work (I have a dying 8600M GT working this way). If none of that works, it's time for a new laptop.

 

Sounds like the overheat damage is caused by prolonged usage without internal dust cleaning. I've seen this happened to desktop components but never to laptop (and for this reason I suspect that most laptops have air cooling design such that there's very little dust accumulation).

Try cleaning out the heatsink and the fan's fins using a duster. Apply thermal paste like Althernai said. Or else, you have gotten your money's worth with 5 years of service from this laptop. It might just be the time to let it rest in peace and move on.

 

Also is the internal fan spinning and is there warm air coming out?