jempalmer

I've never heard of a reformat temporarily curing a hardware problem. They are two separate issues. When you reformat and reinstall your operating system the only effect you are having on the graphics is reinstalling the drivers for it. I think that this "fix" is very probably a coincidence. It sounds like the graphics hardware is failing. Being a laptop, and quite an old one, I think it's time to buy a replacement machine. The graphics hardware is integrated into the motherboard and so is not really repairable.