How do I see foreign characters on my computer?

What the heck happened to my computer?

• My computer is the emachines el1352. For the price it had very good reviews so my family got it when our old computer broke. This computer has had some problems with system resume in the past where we would have to restart the computer for it to work and a few times I have gotten the BSOD most likely for hardware problems. Also one time in the past it wouldn't start up correctly, and start up repair fixed it. This time was worse though. I tried to resume the computer from sleep/hibernation and it was just a blank screen. I thought it just needed a restart, but it would not boot up all the way. The emachines logo would flash and then it would just be black. The mouse and keyboard lights would come on, I could open the cd drive, I could put on caps lock etc. but it would not fully boot(I think). I was trying to get into safe mode but no matter what I did after the emachines logo came up it would be black. Perhaps the weirdest part is when I left the computer on for around 10 minutes to see what would happen. I don't remember if I pressed f8 this time unfortunately, but its a possibility that I did and then hit enter a few times for no reason. I looked at the computer later, and if I looked VERY closely I could see the dimmest characters on the screen ever. It was system start up repair running. All I saw was the text about this and I was pressing enter a few times to see if that finished it. Eventually it did finish and It said restart to finish(still verrrrrry dim lighted). This did not work though unfortunately. I continued trying to get into safe mode but it wouldn't work. Finally I tried pressing f8 for safe mode and leaving it running again(this time I'm certain I pressed f8). Then I noticed another thing weird. I had the monitor turned off and when I turned it on, I would see very quickly what was supposed to be on the screen(the options for safe mode). It went black in a flash though. I repeated this and the same thing would happen. I hit down then enter and finally I could see the screen booting into safe mode. I was relieved that it was semi working. Then oddly enough, I just restarted the computer and it worked normally(though did take a little bit extra time to log in fully). Anyone have a clue what the hell happened and if my computer is permanently messed up?

• Answer:

  When you mention the very dim text on the screen, this leads me to think your monitor is going out. Black screens after startup, usually mean power supply bad, or video card going bad. Since its working sometimes, Im ruling out the power supply, as they usually work or not. Of course these are only educated guesses. If possible you should rule out software issues before going on to hardware as software is usually the cause. If you could try reinstalling a fresh copy of windows if possible. This gets rid of corrupted data in the OS, viruses and spyware. If the problem persists after a clean install then its the hardware. No computer is permanently messed up, its just a matter of is it worth fixing, or just a better idea, to go buy a new one.