display problem MBP 15(2.5GHz Intel Core 2 duo)

i noticed about 2 weeks ago an intermitant issue when i was using my MPB the display would suddenly lose resolution so it looked like there were many vertical lines. text would become very jagged and difficult to read. in excel, some of the cell/column borders would not appear.

the problem would usually resoved if i moved or if the computer slept, all would return to normal.

today i booted up and the display looked immediately like crap (same probem) and has not changed regardelss of how much moving, sleeping or restarting i seem to do.

i can hook it up to an external montior and it looks fine. i get no hardware failure reports at start up. dislplay info is:

NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT:

Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

PCIe Lane Width: x8

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0407

Revision ID: 0x00a1

ROM Revision: 3212

Displays:

Color LCD:

Resolution: 1152 x 720

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Built-In: Yes

Display Connector:

Status: No Display Connected

Could this be an internal display cable problem like i had on my G4 model? i would think if it was the graphics card, it would do it to both the internal display and the external display.

this is what i am seeing now at 1440x900.