Linux Compaq Presario 2ghz
 

I have recently bought a 2nd hand Compaq Presario 2ghz
And would like to know which would be the best current distro to try I have just downloaded xubuntu 12.10 and it won't load scrambled screen must be the video card! I've had success with mint 11 seems OK just curious what might run best on this PC?

Depending on how much RAM and GB's on your hard drive it's a little hard to give a suggestions.

Anyway Puppy Linux isn't a larger distro like, Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora which is larger.
http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%...%20Started.htm

You said:"downloaded xubuntu 12.10 and it won't load"
I'm not the expert but it could be hardware failure and the only way I know to test that is to run Memtest86.

Aside from that maybe the ISO image of Xubuntu was corrupt....did you check the integrity of the file with cksum? If not here's How To:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/tag/md5-checksum