Windows

knackered you can't see it has?

Lines down the screen and fade is usually a sign that the display is furked.

Plug in an external monitor see what happens.

Keep an eye on repair costs, could easily work out cheaper to buy a new one.

You can get a caddy to mount the drive and get your files if it is something more serious.

Your best bet is to buy the exact same model on eBay, remove your hard drive and pop it into the new(er) unit.

Or buy a new unit and put your existing hard drive into a USB drive enclosure so you can recover your data.

I have repaired many laptops. Laptop repair is difficult and expensive. Even if you could get a replacement video adapter for that laptop, it would take time to source that part, and a good deal of labor cost to swap it --AND-- the diagnosis is ''pretty sure" that you're replacing the right part.

If your life depending on getting that laptop running again, I would budget something like four weeks and $400 to the project. And that is if you could get the part, which I am not sure you can.

Right now on eBay I see that exact model laptop with a 'buy it now' for $250, and it's working, though it's a bit cracked and beat up. I would recommend going to the Dell Outlet store web site and seeing what refurbed or open-box specials they have there.

And with this model it's a replacement M'Board if you want to repair the thing. Not cheap and not likely to be overly reliable after the repair either.

I would be looking at replacing the unit and if you must use a NB stick a Cool Pad under it to prolong it's life. All NB's that I've ever come into contact with have a Heat problem and you have to take steps to minimize the heat build up so something like this Cool Pad from Antec is available

http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzI=

You can pickup a cheaper thing on E Bay if you wish but you need one with Fans in it that draws it's power from a USB Port. These stop air borne crud getting sucked into the Internal Airways of NB's and prevent the Air Intakes from being blocked.

You can also check to see if ASUS has issued a Recall Notice for this model as well just in case there have been any issues with the Video Chip Set involved.

Col

I took my laptop into the shop today to see what would happen with a different display.

I hooked it up, and that created some action actually. The boot screen came up, asked me if I wanted to run windows repair (or start normally); I started it normally, as I did not have the repair discs with me at the time (tomorrow I will pick up a second hand monitor), but it did not fully boot windows; however, it loaded for a few minutes before going to a black screen.

Also, there were artefacts during the entire process.

Tomorrow I will have everything I need to perform a system repair - the disc and an external display. Is there any hope?