Spin the wheel of weird boot problems!

Hey! First time Mac owner here.
So, I bought this poor little 13" white Macbook off a guy who had clearly abused it and I'm trying to nurse it back to health. I'm trying to fix it, and then wipe the hard drive and install a fresh copy of the best OS I can get for it. It's gradually getting better, but I'm still having some problems, so I figured I'd ask you guys for help.
_Here's what I'm working with:_
- 13" white macbook
- OSX 10.4.11
- 60GB HD
- 2GB RAM
_Here's what I've done so far:_
- FIRST I took the giant "Valvoline" sticker off the back.
- Then I replaced the broken left display hinge.
- Now I'm trying to get it to WORK properly.
_Here's what it WAS doing / not doing:_
- Not booting or, booting without the screen turning on.
OR
- Not booting and just repeatedly checking disk drive.
I reset the SMC and got the screen back (sometimes). Then after multiple attempts, I got the thing to boot and I tried to update the SMC firmware (which it told me was already updated), then I uninstalled all the crap-tacular software the guy had put on it. Then I downloaded a program called "MainMenu", and ran all the Mac maintenance processes it had.
_Here's what it's doing / not doing now:_
- Sometimes it boots without the screen coming on. (At least that's what I assume it's doing.)
- Sometimes it boots ok, and I can use it as normal, but only for UP TO 30 minutes or so before the screen goes black and it checks the disk drive and then does nothing.
- Sometimes it doesn't wait for the OS loading status bar to finish before displaying the desktop and letting me use the computer, but sometimes it does. Is that normal?
Next I'm going to do some research and make sure I've got the right RAM in there and make sure it's properly installed and seated. Maybe it's a bad logic board, maybe its just a bad SMC chip, maybe it's a problem with the magnetic switch, maybe I just have it sitting to close to my Dell laptop and it's angry. I'm not sure. Any advice you guys have for me would be great.
Also, can anybody tell me what is the recommended best OS for this model?
Thanks!
~Dave

Actually, I think this MIGHT just be a problem with the magnetic switch that puts it to sleep when the thing closes. The "crashing" that I'm experiencing is actually just the screen going black and not coming back on, and I've actually got it to come back on today by closing the lid and opening it back up. Hmmmm...

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