Sounds like the video driver......went thru a bit of the same when I upgraded although I have an ATI card. Check with HP for a video driver.....notebooks tend to have highly customized video drivers. If HP doesn't have one then uninstall the Nvidia driver and let Windows install it's own version. After installation go into Control Panel > Display and make sure it's set up correctly.

I did that already but it keeps crashing with the color lines right after the boot screen. I will check HPs site to see if they have special drivers for my laptop though.

Had a similar thing happen to me some months ago. Short version: Video card was dead. Any attempt to utilize it beyond Windows Classic resulted in BSOD.

might just be dust casuing it to overheat (guessing here) try hoovering it though the grills.

Did open laptop and found it very dirty, cleaned it up a bit but still crashes. I have a cooling pad for it as well but when I game it does heat up quite a bit. I know a laptop is not ideal for gaming but it's what I had for now.

Search the net to see if your nvidia card is one of those affected by the slow nvidia death from bad components. My 8600M card died twice and had full mobo replaced followed by money back from manufacturer but EU has stricter laws on goods being fit for purpose and replacement or money back. Lots of nvidia chips die due to poor composite lamination even up to 9200 series I think - it was all hushed up for a while but it is out in the open now, nvidia stock value halved at time they verified the problem about a year ago. Apple also was affected too as they used the 8600M.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=296979

??? http://www.mybestlaptop.org/hp-pavilion-dv9500-and-nvidia-8600m-gs-failure.html

I suspect the issue is with the video card hardware and not a driver issue.

You've already covered the basics: tried a reboot, then updated driver, then a Windows reinstall.

The issue could from part of the GPU frying during your CoD session, or a GPU RAM chip frying.  It could also be from a voltage-regulator (aka capacitor) that died, one that only kicks in during "heavy" GPU usage. 

It is entirely reasonable that the video card works with the default Windows drivers but crashes during heavier use.  There are a lot of unused pathways in today's GPU's when you are using the basic Windows Explorer; these pathways kick in during 3D-accelerated application (ie DirectX or OpenGL) or video processing.

A number of video codecs have shifted their processing to video cards.  I don't know if Adobe Flash also uses the GPU for video decompressing, but your errors are consistent with GPU-enabled decoders.  The 8600M video card in your laptop includes video-decoding hardware.

I agree with Ausvet that you should check for any recalls or warranty extensions due to a history of hardware failures for your laptop's video card.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advise. I contacted HP to see what they would say, I will have to reinstall Vista (which was originally on the PC) and reinstall all the drivers and update the BIOS to see if that is the issue (have to go thru every step of process of elimination) to see if it still causes problems. If not so, then I will have to find out if it's the laptop monitor (not sure how to check that), then I will need to check if it's the video card. I still think it's the video card. I am not much of an expert of hardware but as GG_Crew discribed it, makes perfect sense to me since it's the same conclusion I came to. I will let you know what happens later tonight.

GG is right on the money, it is your video card.  Similar things happened to me last weekend and I had to run out and buy a new card.  Was very unfortunate due to 5870 X2 coming out next week and Fermi in a few months. 

Just to give you an idea of what happened to me:

Playing Trine, game pixelated and computer crashed.
Rebooted fine, started to play again, crashed again.
Reboot, tried demigod, crashed.

Updated drivers, it still crashed.

Thinking (hoping) it was just heat related: 

Downloaded the video card overclocking program for fan control, bosted the fan to 100%, dropped the temp by 8 degrees, still crashed.

Pulled card, replaced thermal paste, still crashed.

Then the card stopped even booting up.

Good luck bro, i hope it's covered by warranty!

hi...the same thing happened to me 7 days ago.....i´m playing Civilization 4 (BTS) - very complicated graphic game.....i changed the Graphic Card....it was overheat and burned )).....i bought new one and everything is cool again...so i think maybe you have the same problem as i had...try this

Never again will I get a laptop for gaming. I am amazed so many people had this problem so recently.

Gaming is typically GPU-intensive....so there will be a lot of sustained heat....and compact computers of any kind/brand will be inefficent at handling/dispersing heat....ergo...

The only 'good' gaming computer is a big box [where there's room to handle heat properly].

It's a fair bet you have fried your GPU....simple as that....

Time for ebay!

Might get a fair price for parts on that laptop - maybe?

Unless you get a cooling board for your laptop to sit on I'd say it's generally a bad idea to have a laptop as a pure gaming rig.

As for the problems it sounds like a video issue, maybe even a motherboard issue.