R30 freezing up and other issues

[Dos3.1]

I've been running an R30 with Linux Mint 7 ‘Gloria’ XFCE and it works (sometimes).

Here are the issues:

-Freezing up after booting and/or mouse freezing after booting (sometimes I need to boot it 2 or 3 times for it to work)
-Suspend and Hibernate don't work (the system will go into these modes, but won't wake from them, needing a reboot)
-Screen area is small (there is a thick black border around the edges of the screen). I tried a BIOS setting for this and it seemed to expand the screen size, but then it crashed. No settings from the desktop have any effect on screen size.
-Fan runs fast and the system runs hot (Celeron processor, so not a surprise I guess!).

Any suggestions to fix these issues, the main one the freezing up? I'm considering another OS. Tried Mint 13 and it wouldn't work. Thanks.

-Edit: After trying the HD on another machine (in a 600 I recently was given), I've guessed that it must be a MB or RAM issue, as the HD works fine, So, I'll be using this system for parts.