LinuxQuestions.org - Lupu 5.28 freezing when booted from cd AND after installing on hdd

NOTE: I'm re-posting this here because at the other forum never got a single reply...

I've grabbed an old desktop that used to work with Win XP but it came out unusable after a lost, unrecoverable/fixable password issue. In the past I've used a couple of Linux distros with that machine but never got it to work with Windows again. Now, I've managed to boot it with BartPE, Lupu 5.28 and DSL on a stick. On all cases it gave me one trouble or another, so I decided to install an OS in the HDD: I choose Lupu, for the moment...

The thing is that when running from the CD it frozed a coupple of times and thought it was partly by the lack of enough memory (RAM) so I used GParted (from Lupu) to repartition and reformat the HDD. Then installed Lupu 5.28, downloaded Firefox & installed it successfully.

The monitor I was using was a Compaq MV740, which includes speakers. Then, suddenly, the monitor went black and started to go on for a fraction of a second, every 6-8 secs apart, but the image is covering part of the center region and is greatly distorted: I'm incapable to discern what it says.

Have 2 questions:

1) Is there something I can do (software-wise/hardware-wise) to make certain of what's the issue?

2) is there a better choice for this hardware (another Puppy)?

Note: CPU - 1.2 GHz AMD Athlon | Memory: 96 MB | BartPE Build Time: 4/27/2005
2 PC133 cards, 128 MB each. making a total of 256 MB of RAM.

PS. After completing the installation process I was served a note stating that some 'packages' might be missing and making it clear that a note of the message should be grabbed: I copied it... Could this be related to my issue?

When using this desktop "3" screens has died already in a few hours, should I change the video card if at all possible or should I change some video settings, instead?

Thanks in advance for any info on the above issue(s)!