NP5796 video card dead?

Yesterday I was playing a game and got a BSOD related to the graphics driver. From there, the computer would go into a boot loop. I went into safe mode, deleted the NVIDIA drivers and got it to boot normally. I then got the latest driver from sager's website and installed.

The driver installed correctly but device manager says something along the lines of "Windows has shut down this driver because it has reported problems".

I'm currently using the computer but have no video acceleration (aero themes don't even work).

Also when I first boot up, the BIOS and windows startup screens have lines all over them. When inside Windows 7, there's no artifacts anywhere.

Does this sound like the video card died?

If so, how easy would it be to replace on my own? I've built many many desktops before but have little knowledge of how these performance laptops are built.

Your input is appreciated!

 

Assuming no overclocking...

Yes its probably dead. Your most cost effective option is this card:
512MB HP / COMPAQ FX3600M MXM PCI-E GDDR3 492189-001 | eBay

Performance identical to 8800m GTS, a very good overclocker.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. How can I find out exactly what cards are supported in my system? I might be going for an upgrade if possible but as I said before, no experience with changing out a GPU in laptops.