![[Image: white_stripes.jpg]](http://z.about.com/d/tvcomedies/1/0/F/6/-/-/white_stripes.jpg)
White Stripes!
On a more serious note, I agree with Spunky that it sounds like it was an overheating issue at first (even if it sounds a bit strange that it only happened using IE, did games or something else work?). As the white stripes come on as soon as you boot (before the OS), it pretty much makes it a hardware problem. Also, you said that after installing Firefox the computer just crashed, any blue screens?
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