Artifacts on my computer screen

Last night, I logged onto my computer for a couple minutes. Everything was working fine. This morning though, when I turned it on, the screen was covered in artifacts. The artifacts are even captured by a screen capture.
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6521/untitledij4.jpg

I went into the DXdiag and found no errors reported. I tried reinstalling the Video Card drivers, but that resulted in being stuck at 640 by 480 resolution. The thing that scares me the most is that the artifacts are there even before Windows starts up. The BIOS settings are almost unreadable.

I think my video card may be broken, but I hope not.
Does anybody have any ideas how to fix it?

 

Well, I just reinstalled the drivers a third time, and this time it starts up in 1280 by 1024, but with the same artifacts.

 

I just opened a game, which was unplayable with the artifacts. I then hard restarted the computer and suddenly the artifacts disappeared. I don't think the problem is actually solved though.

 

Can anyone tell me if the card is surely ruined or not?
Thanks in advance.