so my motherboard was dying and everything

So my last couple of weeks were sent watching Black Butler and panicking due to my laptop beginning to do something not unlike having a psychotic episode--artifact squares everywhere and sudden shutdown. As it turns out, my GPU was failing and as this laptop came with it soldered to the board, that meant a new motherboard.

Okay, last month was the third year anniversary of Sherlock and I'm officially unwilling to replace him until every component melts down into slag that I can't replace. I love Sherlock. He's my best laptop ever and he's the first computer I broke my two year replacement rule for and I love him. Like in ways that would worry me if I wasn't in fandom, where I know at least four people who also harbor tender feelings for the epic technological romance that is their relationship with their laptops.

That did not leave me with many options, and by that I mean there was one: I'd have to do my first laptop motherboard replacement. Or I could pay the people I was buying the motherboard from to do it, but Sherlock is mine. I can't build laptops yet, due to the market being ridic, but nothing in him hasn't been taken out and checked by me at least once, I've replaced his keyboard once and removed the DVD to add a second drive myself. I imagined--in theory--handing him over to unknowing, unloving hands to strip down into his component parts and have him returned to me a stranger that I didn't quite know, and realized I was crazy and that's a terrible moment of personal insight to have, so to avoid further questioning my sanity, I decided to do it myself.

( my relationship with electronics is like this )

In short: it worked! So far--so far--everything seems to be working very well, and my temperatures in my laptop--due to dear God the amount of thermal paste I used--are at an all-time low. Even more surprisingly, I do mean an all-time low; I used to burn myself with my laptop if I touched it running when I got it, and now my temps are all in high-normal range, which considering it's an i7, is normal, but closer to not causing second degree burns by looking at it took hard.

Reference Guide for Laptop Graphics

Because I tracked this shit for months and searched for several days for this and it was only by accident I figured out what I was supposed to be asking:

My failure started a few months ago with random blackouts that would immediately be fixed by touchpad/mouse action. A few weeks ago, I began to experience at random intervals what looked like a screen-wide checkerboard, each square about half a centimeter and alternating ones all colors or noise-looking which I didn't realize were also called graphic artifacts. It froze my screen and required a reboot, then would be fine for a while before doing it again. On Friday, it did it again, I rebooted, checked it, worreid, then shut it down. Saturday morning, however, it booted briefly and then shutdown and refused to start. I took out the hard drive and booted it in my server and ran virus scan on it there while I disassembled Sherlock, rechecked the wiring, and then took my drive out of my server and put it in my laptop again and rebooted normally. It worked for ten minutes before checkerboard artifacts displayed and complete failure.

This can be three issues:
1.) GPU is overheated - get HWMonitor or another temperature program, get all your temperatures, save them, get your graphic card name/type/model/version, and look for the average temperature range. This can be easy or impossible to find unless you know what forum to check; manufacturers are not always right.
2.) Motherboard is dying - get a professional assessment. Most place that I have checked will do a diagnostic for free or a fee (Parts-People will do it for $30.00 for a dell laptop), because a lot, lot, lot of things can appear to be a motherboard failure.
3.) GPU is dying - see above

If your GPU is soldered to the motherboard, it's basically a de facto motherboard failure; you need a new one.

If you get a blue screen when booting that indicates hardware failure, it's actually your BFF. It's protecting your computer from the heat death that end the universe (your sanity when you realize your internet is still dependent on separate machines and not yet installed in your body, as many of us dream).
1.) DO NOT TRY TO REBOOT again--you can burn out your CPU doing that, and your CPU is generally the most expensive replacement part.
2.) If you're comfortable with this, remove your primary and secondary drives if you have a secondary drive. This is just a precaution, and they tend to be easy to get to for removal.
3.) Unplug and pull the battery - this is to make sure no power is going in and you aren't tempted to start it just in case a miracle occurred overnight (as maybe I sometimes believe in my heart of hearts). This is also precautionary; I didn't want any power even potentially going to the board and exacerbating the problem until I was ready to repair it.
4.) Get a professional assessment or if you know this is what you need to do, go get the parts.

( do it yourself prep )

And then there's when stuff doesn't work.

( basic troubleshooting )

And finally, your home repair necessities:

( i like these things )

This has been a message from a very stressful day and I'm still waiting for my laptop to explode or collapse or make me cry or something. Will report if this occurs, though I think my ragescreams will probably be audible in space.