Good to hear you give it a blow out frequently.
This may be a silly question but have you tried another monitor with the system? I am not sure what you mean by unreadable, there are many video related issues that can make things unreadable, some are caused by the graphics card/igp others are caused by a failing monitor or cables. Let me run down a basic list.
1: Artifacting = anything that is displayed over the image that is not meant to be, lines, dots, black squares etc. Typically due to the GPU 2: Screen Blur, monitor related 3: Color corruption = image content displays but the colors are all wrong and may flicker, not to be confused with color imbalance. Usually GPU related 4: Color imbalance. Improperly balanced RGB values, monitor related 5: Screen tearing = looks as though the image was sliced and then offset at the slice, part of the image could even be missing. GPU related if in general desktop use, monitor related if gaming (refresh rate and vsync improperly set in game) 6: Garbled image, basically anything else from a single color displaying in weird patterns to lines, blocky image, inversion of colors and or image in patches making the screen unreadable etc. GPU related.
More often than not though, most of these problems tend to come from cables that have begun to degrade. Trying a different (known working) monitor next time it plays up could help figure it out. Sadly if the problem is not coming from cables or the monitor itself and begins to worsen it is most likely the onboard graphics that is beginning to fail. I would say try and clear CMOS and see if default settings get things going properly again but given your system is a POS system I am hesitant to recommend it unless you know your BIOS setup well and can configure it properly again after. Many POS systems have fairly complex setups in the BIOS to facilitate the peripherals they use.
It may be worth while reseating the RAM and power cables on the motherboard next time you have the system open, maybe even remove the ram and blow out the slots with compressed air. Dust has a way of getting in everywhere and if it is impeding contact it can cause a broad array of problems.
I hope at least some of this post is usefull
Good luck
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