Static on 8100 laptop display

Hello all,

I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 that's about 3 or 4 years old... little problem here:

So last night a few friends and I played Star Wars Jedi Academy for a few hours. Nothing weird happened while we were playing, nothing weird at all. I shut down the computer when we were done playing and drove home and connected it to my docking station and booted it.

To my complete and absolute horror, the display had weird lines in it like some computers do when the video card has kicked the bucket, along with something that I've never seen before on a laptop: static. It looks like a TV that is not quite tuned to the right channel. It doesn't just do it in Windows, is happens during POST and when Windows is loading. The static isn't so bad that I can't see what I'm doing.

I turned it off and rebooted without the docking station and on battery power, but it's the same. It rested all night and is still doing it this morning.

I have contemplated two possibilities: Perhaps the video card has given up after one last night of joy, or on the way home, somehow the video cable got partly unplugged. When I get home I'm going to take it apart and check on the cable....

Any other ideas ?