Display freaking out, flashing, fan spinning

Hello all. My MBP (from about February/March) just suddenly started flashing the display when I got home today - a regular, pulsing, strobe-like flashing that makes it impossible to look at it. The fan also starts spinning like crazy, though I wouldn't say the computer seems hotter than usual.
I have rebooted, booted off the start disks, unplugged everything and rebooted again - nothing makes any difference. Trying to go to Displays in System Preferences just hangs.
I'm writing this on an external monitor at the moment, which is behaving fine, so it's something about the laptop itself. I have an appt tomorrow at the Genius Bar but I'm freaking out because I have a deadline for some work... does anyone have any ideas? It does look like a hardware thing...

Have you tried running the Apple Hardware Test? It's on Install Disc #1 of the gray discs that came with your computer. I don't know if you can run it given the way your computer is acting up, but if you can run it, you may get an error code which would point towards the cause of the problem.
Also, if you can, open Activity Monitor (in your Utilities folder in your Applications folder). Select "All Processes" at the top, and see if you have something running amok in the background that is hogging the CPU. This is something that would cause the fans to spin like crazy.
There is a "Flash Screen" option under the Hearing tab in Universal access, but I don't think that this is the problem here. You could check to see that it is turned off.
Since the problem persists even when booted from a disc, I suspect it is a hardware problem.
Do be sure you have an up to date backup before going in--there's a good chance your Mac will have to go off to be repaired.
Good luck!

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