graphics chipset gone bad?

One of my friends is using an old Gateway GT5056 with onboard video. We tried to start a game on his computer and received an error. I can't remember exactly what it was, something about the paging file, and being out of memory. It's an issue I've noticed in the past, and it's odd, because when I check the task manager 95% of his ram and paging file are being used, but according to the task manager less than a gig of memory is actually being used (when looking at individual tasks). Thinking that there might be a memory leak somewhere, I decided the best thing to do would be to restart the computer (he does this once a month, at the most).

I shut the computer down on accident (instead of restarting it). I hit the power button to turn it back on a few seconds after it turned off. Uncharacteristically, the computer turned on, the drives whirred, but the monitor light stayed yellow. It looked like the computer was booting up just fine, but we couldn't see anything on the monitor. We power-cycled the computer, and tried again. Same. Power-cycled the monitor, same. Left it off for a few hours and tried again, same. We tested the monitor with another computer and found that it worked fine.

We tried another monitor, but it's been rather finicky in the past, so any conclusions drawn from the fact that it didn't work aren't necessarily accurate. I also opened up the case and checked for bad connections and excessive dust.

Assuming that the computer is actually booting (it looks like it is, because the hard drive indicator light is coming on, and then turning off after about 20/30 seconds), then my best guess at this point is that the onboard graphics died. This hasn't ever happened to me, so it's more of a SWAG, but I can't think of anything else that would cause this behavior (barring a bad motherboard).

The power supply is a decent Antec, the processor runs hot but it isn't hitting anything over 50/55C on full load, and we didn't hear a beep after the computer started, so I'm thinking the ram is probably fine.

Does anyone have any ideas? I hate to have my friend buy a new graphics card w/o knowing that it's for sure the problem (though he's long overdue for a new one). My biggest fear is that the motherboard went bad.

I'll be checking the thread for replies. I'd appreciate any educated guesses/suggestions.

Thanks.

 

He isn't even considering taking it to a shop to get repaired, it would cost him more for that than it would a new card. And there's no way I'm going to try to repair it (unless it's as simple as a disconnected wire or loose heatsink), essentially because I can't. I'm more interested in narrowing down the problem so we can get a replacement.

He's been needing to get a discrete graphics card for a while now, now is just not the best timing.