Software :: 24" White Imac Won't Boot Up?

white 24" iMac purchased in the fall of 2006 2Gb RAM 500Gb HD

First sign of trouble:

While watching trailers at apple.com I noticed some pixels on the screen were pink and blue. Not in lines but just in random spots. They would disappear now and then when you moused over them.

Tried some restarts and eventually it would sometimes freeze at the blue screen with the mouse usable.

I did a safe-boot and everything was fine and normal. No pixels, almost seemed normal. After a few more restarts and resetting Pram, Safe mode began showing pixels as well.

I was getting concerned for the data on it at this point and hooked up a firewire cable and booted it up in transfer mode and got all my data off.

Now I wanted to try and to a clean install of Leopard 10.5.

Second sign of trouble:

Now the computer won't get past the grey screen with the apple and progress wheel. It will be just about to go to the blue screens when the wheel will freeze and thats it.

Should mention the grey screen is now covered in pink and blue pixels everywhere.

Safe-boot won't get in.. Resetting Pram doesn't change anything.

Command Option O F doesn't work.

Tried booting from the install disc, holding 'c' down it almost works then the message of "You must restart your computer" in like 10 different languages comes up.

Holding down option lets me choose b/w the hard drive and OS install disc but still gets the restart message.

I am pretty much resigned to "looks at watch" submit the official time of death on it. Ever since the original iMac in 97 this is the first Mac that has ever died on me.. Kinda shocked and disappointed.

Any confirmations or suggestions on how or why it died would be helpful. Was it a hardware or software breakdown. My guess is hardware. /shrug

Or just maybe there is a fix still out there