Blue Screen/Graphics Card Problem Help

My sister has recently been having problems with her laptop. It starts up and the screen in blue but is the light blue colour of her laptop wallpaper (so shows like normal but without logos/ Windows toolbar or anything). It also shuts down after a few minutes (possibly from everheating) and wont turn back on until the power/battery light comes on again. I think it has had a system restore and I am just running antivirus (AVG 8) but keeps turning off before it can complete it. We are trying to backup everything but again it keeps turning itself off so not able to backup everything.

Will trying to reformat it help or is there anything else that will be able to help it without replacing everything. I had a similar problem a while ago and remormatting fixed it.

She has taken it to be looked at and said it had a graphics card problem but will cost £140 to replace something.

Wrote down all info I could about it that I could find out - not sure how to find out any other info on it.

Acer TravelMate 5510
Windows Vista
Service Pack 1
AMD Turion (tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-52 1.60Ghz
1.00GB Memory Ram
System Type: 32 Bit OS

 

Also it starts up fine in safe mode if that makes any difference

 

Does it shut down after a while in safe mode?
If not run the anti virus program from there (it's actually better)
You can also backup from safe mode as well as far as I know.
If it's a graphics card problem I don't see how it's running OK in safe mode, so it may only be a software issue a simple reinstall will cure.
Have you tried to clean the fan/heat-sink assembly by blowing air through the vents?

 

It works and backs up in safe mode. But it does shut down if it is doing too much (transferring files/ antivirus etc.) She had done some complete virus scans and got rid of some things. Will try and run it with a fan under it if its a cooling problem, but think she got everything she needs off.

Also trying to deactivate serial for adobe CS4 but wont let her in safe mode so if anyone knows how to do it, it would be helpful. Will try and reformat it but think she needs the disc for it which is in another country right now so have to wait till she gets it unless anyone knows a way to do it without the discs on vista.

She said it first happened when connecting to wifi in a pub so dont know if something happened there.

 

You might want to boot into safemode again and give it a virus scan.

cheers ...

 

She has done a scan already and got rid of some of the problems I think. It sometimes shuts down in the middle of scanning though so cant always complete it but will try another scan later and will try and keep it cool so it doesn't overheat.