ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 display corruption, possible hard..

I have a Sager 3760 (Compal M375E) notebook with an ATI Mobility Radeon
9600 running the graphics. Today, all of a sudden, the display
corrupted with lots of little yellow dots and lines everywhere. I can
still see objects on the screen, but all the colors seemed washed out.

I tried rebooting, and there is also corruption in the text display on
boot! So, it clearly isn't a software problem.

My question is, has anyone seen something similar to this problem? I
know it is related to the video card, but do I need to replace the card
(if so, how) or just the video RAM (if possible, and if so, how). I'm
comfortable with working inside laptops and have replaced numerous
memory modules and hard disks in the past.

Philip Cain wrote:
> I have a Sager 3760 (Compal M375E) notebook with an ATI Mobility Radeon
> 9600 running the graphics. Today, all of a sudden, the display
> corrupted with lots of little yellow dots and lines everywhere. I can
> still see objects on the screen, but all the colors seemed washed out.
>
> I tried rebooting, and there is also corruption in the text display on
> boot! So, it clearly isn't a software problem.
>
> My question is, has anyone seen something similar to this problem? I
> know it is related to the video card, but do I need to replace the card
> (if so, how) or just the video RAM (if possible, and if so, how). I'm
> comfortable with working inside laptops and have replaced numerous
> memory modules and hard disks in the past.
>

Generally (like 99% of the time) the notebook video is an integral part
of the mainboard and is not independently replaceable. Sager/Alienware
notebooks have advertised, occasionally, upgradeable video. You might
get lucky. You can try www.notebookreview.com at the Sager forum for
specific advice.

Q