Another semi dead G4 imac

I recently purchased this machine second hand (private sale) It had a fresh install of 10.4.9 and everything seemed good for the first day or so. Then I started to get Kernel Panics. I have done all the usual stuff, except for the hardware disk check (because I don't have a disk, any offers will be generously received!) I have removed the user added ram in the base and removed the airport card. Running Memtest last night it started to pick up some problems, but even memtest failed to complete because of kernel panics.
My questions are
1) does this mean it's definitely a memory issue, and how do I resolve this
2) would it be worth trying another fresh install of 10.4.9 or is it definitely memory related
Any further ideas or suggestions?
Thanks, Aussie in US $400 dollar poorer, sad Imac and frustrated family.

Its a 15" imac G4, 1G, with 256 RAM (M9285LL/A). The new RAM macthed the old RAM on spec's but was 512 instead of 256. I thought if I'm spending $$ I might as well upgrade a bit. So if I can't get it going I might have some cheap RAM if anyone is interested.
I've come up with a theory. It worked fine for the first few days after I purchased it second hand. When I took it apart last night there was a torx screw missing from the base. Obviously someone has had it apart at some stage. My theory is that it was taken apart just before I bought it and in putting it back together they haven't replaced the thermal paste and without the extra screw in the base there wasn't a good enough connection to convey heat from the logic board. So I think I've slowly cooked the Logic Board.
Although having said this, the neck of it would get very warm when left on, which indicated the heat is getting up somehow!
Any advise on the next step?

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