Fuzzy screen, strange colours, and startup freeze

Hello there.
This issue might have been covered, but I have not found a thread with it specifically.
The thing is, I have an first generation Imac G5, with 17 inches screen and 1.8 Ghz. It has Leopard with the latest patches. The serial number was in the range of the repair extention program (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2390?viewlocale=en_US) so I got it repared for that issue over a year ago. There was no video gliches, but it just refused to power up. They really had a hard time making in work at the shop I went to in Montréal. I think they said the first power supply they instelled grilled, and they also had to change the mother board. But at last it was ok and worked for a year.
But small video glitches (with strange random colour lines)and kernel panics started to became more frequent until finally, the thing froze on mid startup.
After a night's sleep it started all right with a bit of screen oddities but froze two minutes after when a program was started. It starts all right in safe mode, but more screen oddities become apparent over time and after a while it dies painfully in an abstract graphic figures drug addict vision style nightmare. I have tried all the basic reset stuff without sucess.
At apple they say repair it at your own expanse and bugger off... lol. But I'm really being poor student budget here! So basically, I want to identify the problem's origins, know if I can sort it out myself and how... If not, how much would it cost to repair the damned beauty. It would be a shame to end the love-hate relationship we share, and I might be old-school but I like keeping my comps more than 3 years.
Thanks in advance for all your answers ladies, gents and geeks.
Antoine

Welcome to Discussions Antoine - you may be having a problem with your video RAM, or with your power supply or logic board. Try starting from your install disk and run Disk Utility:
Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Let us know what you find,

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    MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,2
    1 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores
    8 GB RAM
Video Information:
    NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 512 MB
    Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB
System Software:
    Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549) - Uptime: 0 days 2:2:6
Disk Information:
    Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 disk0 : (465.76 GB)
        (null) (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 200 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 465.44 GB (80.03 GB free)
    MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
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    Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
    Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
    Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
FireWire Information:
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Launch Daemons:
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    Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 3rd-Party support link
    AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 10.1.9 3rd-Party support link
    AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.9 3rd-Party support link
    CouponPrinter-FireFox_v2: Version: Version 1.1.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
    Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 13.9.8 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.6.6
    Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20513.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
    iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.7
iTunes Plug-ins:
    Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.2
3rd Party Preference Panes:
    Flash Player 3rd-Party support link
    Flip4Mac WMV 3rd-Party support link
Old Applications:
    None
Time Machine:
    Time Machine information requires OS X 10.7 "Lion" or later.
Top Processes by CPU:
         6%    firefox
         5%    EtreCheck
         2%    hidd
         1%    WindowServer
         0%    distnoted
Top Processes by Memory:
    631 MB    firefox
    164 MB    mds
    74 MB    Mail
    74 MB    Dropbox
    57 MB    plugin-container
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    1.02 GB    Active RAM
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    886 MB    Wired RAM
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    0 B    Page-outs

Simska,
regarding the overheating, you can try resetting your MacBook Pro’s System Management Controller.
Regarding the invalid block count, you should boot from your grey Mac OS X Install DVD which originally came in the box with your MacBook Pro, run Disk Utility from it (via the Utilities menu in the menu bar), and select Repair Disk for your internal disk.
After your disk is repaired, exit Disk Utility and restart from your internal disk. When you log in, you should uninstall your installed version of iPhoto Photocast — it was written to work with the Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) SDK, but you have Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.8) installed, so it’s not supported under Snow Leopard. Install in its place an older version of iPhoto Photocast which is compatible with Snow Leopard. You also have an outdated version of Silverlight installed — you can download the most recent version from here.

Fuzzy screen, strange colours, and startup freeze

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