graphics card dead?

[nissin]

I just replaced my hard drive in my 15" mbp (A1226) after it physically failed (degaussed/damaged somehow). i was restoring all my data last night and other than the screen flickering sometimes (which it has done for weeks) it worked fine and i left it on to finish downloading xcode last night and put it to sleep this morning to go to work. i get to work and wake it up and there was no display but it made the chime noise. the display never came on so i restarted it with the power button and this time only the light on the button to open the screen came on- no chimes.
i've had the display replaced about a year and half ago by apple because it was flickering then, but it started doing it a couple weeks ago again.
I've hooked it up to another external monitor and tried to boot it up but nothing comes up on the monitor. i'm thinking you might need to tell it to detect an external monitor, but i thought i'd try. is there another way to isolate if it's the graphics card, display driver board or the display ribbon?

thanks for the help

 

[jbrenn]

sound like graphics card

Symptoms
In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

What to look for:


■Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
■No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on

This has happened to a lot of people most of the time people put it to sleep and the next moring no video.

 

[nissin]

thanks. that is actually what happened. i had read about that happening but i thought i was outside the window for a free replacement. i finally made the appt at apple and brought it in and they decided that the board was at fault and are currently replacing it for free.