Do laptop video cards die?

[david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org (David Kramer)]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 03:17:16AM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
>> David Kramer wrote:
>>> David Kramer wrote:
>>>> SO I went over to my laptop a few hours ago, and the screen was blank 
>>>> and unresponsive.  That usually means my last interaction was on the 
>>>> second screen (on my TV with DB15 input), so I blindly type in the 
>>>> password, and nothing.
>>>> Turn on the TV, and no signal.
>>>> C-A-Backspace, and nothing.
>>>> C-A-Del, and nothing.
>>>> Hard power down (hold down power button for 4 seconds)
>>>> Power up again, and nothing on screen.  Not even during BIOS or GRUB.
>>>> Panic excessively, and nothing.
>> OK, so I just ended a chat session with Dell (yes, it's 3:15AM).  It's 
>> still under warranty, but it's gonna take about two weeks all-told.
> 
> Remember to do a complete backup before you send it off. Sure,
> there's no reason for them to touch the hard disk... that just
> means that if they do so, it will be more spectacularly damaging
> than if they were supposed to fix it.

Yup, that's what the "cp -a" from root was all about.  Already done.

I think I'll remove some of the more sensitive files, but I can't 
imagine they'll spend the time to hack into the Linux side (even though 
it would only take about 20 minutes).