Having Laptop Problems (gray screen on start up)

So I bought a Sager NP2090 laptop (which is a Compal IFL-90 varient) about two years ago from xoticpc.com. I have listed the specs of it down below. So last night I turn on my laptop and a gray screen comes up. This laptop worked fine yesterday morning and I didn't drop it or spill anything on in between those two times of use. In fact I've never dropped it or spilled on it and I rarely even take it off my desk. Now the disk drive works, I can see the hard drive icon light light up and hear the hard drive spin. My mouse lights up when I turn on the laptop. I can adjust the brightness of the screen with the keyboard, but it always stays gray. The computer realizes when it's under battery power and when it is charging. The only thing is that it wont output to my second monitor and the screen will not do anything but stay gray. This leaves me to believe that the GPU, which is one of the famed nVidia 8600m GT GPUs has failed. Is this the case? If it is I realize that there is not much I can do to fix this, short of replacing the motherboard, but can I get any compensation from nVidia as they have admitted to knowing their graphics cards are faulty? Could I possibly get compensation from xoticpc.com? The laptop is not under warrenty, by the way. Or am I to late and am basically screwed? I'll try to keep an eye on this thread, but as of right now I'm stuck to using library computers so there is no guarantee as to when I will reply next. Thanks for the help guys.


Sager NP2090

CPU: intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7300 (4M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
GPU: nVidia 8600m GT 512mb GDDR2
Memory: 2gb DDR2
OS: Windows XP SP3
HDD: 160GB 5400RPM
Screen: 1680 x 1050 matte

graphic card, overheated. time to buy a new laptop or replace the motherboard
in 2 years did you open the laptop and remove the dust buildup?

So a person on another forum suggested I try the oven trick. Basically you put your broken GPU in the oven at 385 °F for 8 minutes. This will melt the solder enough to fix hairline cracks in the solder. So I tried it and IT WORKS! I was actually pretty lucky to be able to do this as most graphics cards are soldered into the mother board. So normally I would have to have put the whole motherboard in the oven which might melt the plastic around the CPU. But this solution from what I hear is not permanent. So I can either replace my 8600m GT with a new one off of eBay. I don't really want to do this because all the 8600m GTs are faulty. I would much rather get a 9600m GT for the same price. The bad thing about this is it would most likely not work and I don't really want to flash my BIOS to get it to work. But while my computer is still working I have time to decide. So a person on another forum suggested I try the oven trick. Basically you put your broken GPU in the oven at 385 °F for 8 minutes. This will melt the solder enough to fix hairline cracks in the solder. So I tried it and IT WORKS! I was actually pretty lucky to be able to do this as most graphics cards are soldered into the mother board. So normally I would have to have put the whole motherboard in the oven which might melt the plastic around the CPU. But this solution from what I hear is not permanent. So I can either replace my 8600m GT with a new one off of eBay. I don't really want to do this because all the 8600m GTs are faulty. I would much rather get a 9600m GT for the same price. The bad thing about this is it would most likely not work and I don't really want to flash my BIOS to get it to work. But while my computer is still working I have time to decide.