nobody else on internet can be so useful about IT problems than this great community
here is description about the problem with my old AMD Duron 950MHz, 384 MB SDRAM, some Sony (or Samsung, im not sure) HDD, and GeForce 2 MX 200/400 video card:
almost every time when i turn on my computer, the screen becomes so strange. letters looks like they were crashed into pieces. at first i thought its some WINDOWS problem because it used to appear only in windows boot up screen but recently it has started to appear even on the first stage when i turn on computer. i have tried to press DELETE to enter BIOS settings and they look same, like the screen was crashed.
at first i thought that CMOS memory battery may have discharged and today i have bought new battery but the problem havent gone. what else can i do?? and problem could it be? i hope computer is not finished yet because i really need it sometimes.

imo it's a hardware problem

either video card or screen. If you have another screen around the house i would suggest trying that one.

if it's not the screen it's probably your graphics card. in my experience pulling a pci/agp card out of the machine and replacing it with less dust helps a great deal.
If it doesn't a graphics card like that doesn't cost a great dela anymore. i believe about 40€ should solve your problem in this case.


DISCLAMER: this is only my opinion i'm not responsible for any damage you might suffer due to this information

kapax... 100% is video card...try opening PC and try to clean dust from card... or even if then does the same thing...
take TESLANOL liquid and spray and clean it...probably this will help..and if still persists...change video card...
now's the rule: if it's broken toss it and buy new1...
hope it helped...

Grivier

thank you, guys.
but still, why it fixes after several restarts and all the rest of the time, when it loads successfully, its working fine. if its graphics card, then its not a big problem but im afraid if there is some problem with motherboard

Hey,

First thing you need to do is remove the graphics card and try and boot the PC. It will go through a POST (power on self test) procedure. It should beep 8 (normally) times to indicate that there is no graphics card. If it doesn't, that will tip the balance of probability in favour of a defective motherboard.

Howevere, if it beeps, the only real way of testing it (since you have corruption even in BIOS - that means you can't use MICROSCOPE or anything correctly) is to try a replacement video card.

Even if it doesn't beep - it is not conclusive. The only real way to test is by replacing the card - I'm sorry.

Sorry matey, one way or another this is hardware.

bb