TriggerFinger

Hi TylerSE,

I cannot say if this would involve NO MONEY at all but start with removing the HDD and boot from your CD/DVD drive using an XP installation CD or any bootable CD. If it boots up fine with no symptoms you described then you can say it is an HDD related failure. Assuming this is the cause, you can test the HDD for hardware errors.

About the heat, since you bought it second hand... then it would be safe to assume that previous owner may have opened it up and may be have done some fixing. You can try to open it up and check the insides like the thermal compound or if the fan is running...etc.

As for the screen with bunch of colors... usually a symptom of a bad video card or motherboard or LCD. Either way, they may need replacement... of course would entail some additional $$$.