Weird issue with Windows 7 & Boot Up?

Hi all,

Having some issues with my machine which I suspect may relate to a motherboard issue.

At first I thought that my graphics card had failed as its getting on a bit now, although its been a total workhorse (nVidia GeForce 8800GTX). My computer would start but no signal to monitor.

So I tried the classics, removing RAM battery and then holding power button for 1 minute with power removed.

Now my system booted up but blue screened initially when it reached the usual point of Windows 7 "Welcome". It then rebooted and I put it into safe mode where all appeared fine. Chose to do a check disk on next boot for C:\.

But what appears to be happening is that the display is distorted prior to boot but once its in Windows its ok? All the motherboard flash screen appears "digitally scratched" and even during CheckDisk, slashed lines appeared all over the screen.

Is this the motherboard, graphics card or some other weird issue?

Will post a screenshot of weird scratches in a moment.

Cheers.

Chris.

Cheers.