HP/Compaq :: Dv9000t Graphics Card

I bought a dv9000t about 2 years ago for college. Almost exactly a year after I bought it, I turned it on to find the screen completely screwed up. It displayed only grey (almost black and white alternating) stripes horizontally with organic shapes of varying shades throughout the screen. I hooked it up to an external monitor where I was able to use it in safe mode only, but with extremely limited color gamut (i.e. the cutout filter on photoshop) so that gradients appeared only as blots of color. It also displayed the screen with white dots and lines across everything.

After some investigation (with no help from HP) I came to believe that the graphics card was, for lack of a better word, fried. This having happened some week or two after the warranty ran out--hp wanted some $100 to even officially diagnose the problem, and unofficially it would cost $600 more to fix. What I am wondering is if the problem actually was the graphics card, and in any case, is this laptop worth anything more than sitting on my shelf? (I bought a sager np 5793 and haven't looked back, but my brother needs a laptop and there sits the HP...)