Crazy Video Flickering, Colors, Patterns and Distortion

The video image on my PC started to become filled with distorted patterns, colors and other "noise" gradually becoming totally unintelligible. I ran the on-board diagnostics on my monitor and it's okay. So I'm assuming this is either related to a driver bug or a problem with my video card.

I can't run the PC to check the drivers, etc. because I can't get the video to function. I tried using safe mode but there's no difference -- the image problems are the same in both regular and safe modes.

Any suggestions on what this might be? If it's the video card would you consider this something that a novice might be able to change?

Thanks for your help with this.

 

Can you try another monitor? If no help it is most likely the video card failing.

 

Def your VC, are you using an Add-In or onboard?