Problem with sandy bridge CPU/GPU.

Windows 7. I have a gateway NE56r10u Laptop with a Celeron B820 Sandy Bridge CPU. The official drivers from gateway, microsoft update, and intel (all versions) cause the laptop to blue screen right before the windows 7 login. The default VGA drivers work just fine but I am limited to non HD video and I cannot even play Age of Empires II.

Also every distro of linux I have tried freezes at the Install or Live session menu.

I'm thinking I need to either replace my CPU/GPU or the motherboard. The CPU/GPU is much cheaper than the motherboard but if the motherboard is the problem I dont want to waste money on the cpu.

**So does anyone think its worth trying a different CPU/GPU?**

Small back story, I bought the laptop for $40 from a girl who said the charger port was bad. Turns out it was the charger port along with the Chinese power brick and battery they got off ebay. I bought an external charger with along with two name brand batteries and now it works just fine aside from the graphics issue.