i doubt about ram or cpu,could it be south or north bridge on the mbhardware issue. ram, cpu or the motherboard.
bios works fine and settings are changeable,except the mb logo screen that happens with minor artifacts,i dont see any artifacts on bios setting or dos screen .Looks perty cool.... :b
Does your BIOS splash screen go by normally b4 trying to load an O/S?
Are you able to hit Delete, F2, etc, to enter BIOS setup?
I would suspect hardware issue too. If you have 2 or more Simm slots you can try switching RAM.... (they are read sequentially so if 1st Simm is bad none will be used).
Wolf