[ubuntu-uk] graphics problem on Ubuntu 8.04 Dell laptop

[David King]

My girlfriend is running Ubuntu 8.04 on her Dell Inspiron 1525 
(preinstalled), but had a few graphics issues recently.
I was playing a game (Penguin Planet Racer) full screen and it crashed 
the laptop, could not get out of it other than a hard reboot.
I disabled some of the Compiz effects, in case that was overloading the 
graphics chip, which I think is an Intel chip.

Today she said she booted it as normal, and then when she logged in, 
there were various small lines on the screen that were never there before.

Is this likely to be a software issue or a hardware problem?

David