Garbage Display...

[Guest Shutter]

I'll try to explain my problem as concisely as possible:

ORIGIN

This problem began several days ago. I do not know of anything that I did to cause this to start; I don't think I upgraded any drivers or anything.

My computer is a Toshiba Tecra M4 laptop, with an NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600, 128mb.

SYMPTOMS

My screen "locked up", and became filled with garbage characters. My system is a dual-boot with Windows and Linux. When I boot, after the initial Toshiba boot screen, I get my bootloader, which is merely a bunch of grey garbage characters. I can navigate the options and choose Windows to boot, but the display is garbage grey characters.

After choosing to boot Windows, the screen looks like this:

And then the screen blacks out and nothing more happens. I can boot into Safe Mode or VGA mode, both of which work fine.

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

I've tried reinstalling the display drivers (various versions), upgrading to the 1.60 Toshiba BIOS, using a Driver Cleaner, reinstalling through various methods (have disk vs setup.exe), letting the laptop sit overnight, removing and swapping out RAM, and making sure all components are securely snug into place. None of these have helped, however on two occasions I was able to get the display normal (no garbage) when booting after reinstalling drivers, only to have this problem recur later. Now, nothing helps.

NOTES

If I choose either Windows or Linux on boot, the display shows similar problems: strange lines or characters, and generally the display won't load properly. I hoped it was drivers, but nothing I've done so far has worked. I thought it was RAM, but nope... I hope it isn't a hardware issue, otherwise I'll have to send in the laptop. I haven't banged the laptop around or anything, so I don't know what's going on.

Any thoughts are appreciated.