Well, I (secretely) used a friend's laptop to test my monitor/graphics card. Had to do it secretely or she woulda gone crazy. Anyway, when I connected my monitor to her graphics card, the screen was split into four cloned quadrants (overlapping from the bottom of the screen to the top). When I attached her monitor to my graphics card, it worked flawlessly. So really, it's either the cable or the LCD screen. Anyone think this is probably more of a cable issue than a monitor issue?
Just to edit, I cannot actually test the cable/lcd themselves as I don't want to take my friend's laptop screen apart. They have a 3 year warranty (first year is up) and I don't want to adversely affect it. I'm thinking it would probably be an inexpensive solution to just buy a cable and see... but if anyone knows what symptoms could cause those four images, that would help me more.
hardware
prices 
