Think I need a new laptop?

[Ellipsis]

I've had my laptop with Vista in it for almost 2 years now, and i've had to reset it to factory condition multiple times. Today, it seemed fine after leaving it on last night, so i shut it down to conserve power and pack it away for school, and when I turned it on, it booted windows, but as soon as it tried to take me to my desktop, it took me to a black screen with my pointer. I tried rebooting it and the same thing. I left it for 15 or so minutes, and my desktop came up, but it said it couldn't load some windows settings or something like that, and it wouldn't let me connect to the internet or look at any internet settings (like not even the network sharing center thing.)

Does anyone think i'll need to get a new computer, or do you think it's salvagable?

[† L4ugh]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and running a virus/spyware scanner? If you have ccleaner or another registry cleaner I would give it a once over as well.

Did you install any new software the last time it was working or download something from torrent or another p2p software?

Is doing another factory reset out of the question?

Encase you don't know how to boot into safe mode you can do it by hitting the F8 key when windows starts to boot up. It will give you a prompt that you can use the up/down arrow keys to select the option you want.

[Asch]

Tried any antivirus, really, it looks like an infection, use one of them and then see if it is a virus or not, cause restoring unnecessarily is not recommenced, and you might lose the data also.

[Loget]

I left it for 15 or so minutes, and my desktop came up, but it said it couldn't load some windows settings or something like that, and it wouldn't let me connect to the internet or look at any internet settings (like not even the network sharing center thing.)

Doubt it's a virus then. A virus wouldn't disable your internet connection since it needs you to be connected to the internet to steal information about you (passwords, websites you visit, etc).

I suggest you reset it to factory conditions again, if it happens again after that then you need to get it repaired (it has a warranty right?). I don't think you should buy a new laptop until you've tried everything to get your current laptop fixed.

[† L4ugh]

It could still be a virus because not all virus coders are out to steal personal info, some just want to bugger your system as best they can.

I need a little more info though before I'm ready to call it a virus or say to reset the whole thing however.

Does it go to the black screen when it is loading the desktop itself or is it before you log in to your account?

Can you move the mouse cursor across the screen when the black screen comes up or is it frozen?

Is it the arrow point cursor or the loading circle you seen when the black screen is up?

I had this problem a few times myself when I was trying to tolerate Vista but I never had the network problem and a restart would usually give an acceptable fix. Something seems to be preventing the desktop from loading completely, but without more info I can't tell if it is a virus, corrupt file, or some other issue. Worst case scenario though you should be able to use a bootable linux iso to retrieve any important info and do a factory reset, but it may not be necessary.

[Ellipsis]

Well, i had avast! antivirus running the whole time, and I wasn't downloading anything from p2p software since my last scan. my warranty expires on the 15th though, so i'm thinking on bringing it in anyway. but my antivirus didn't detect anything.

It turned black after trying to access my account thing, and the welcome thing went for longer than normal. I'm able to move my mouse, but the only thing i can do so the soft ware is either take the battery out or press the power button (which i have set to hibernate my com, which i did and then restarted my com from the screen where it gets me to choose the account i'm going on to)

[† L4ugh]

Do you have ccleaner on it by chance or another registry cleaner?

Have you tried booting into safe mode yet?

It could be something simple like a registry error.

[Ellipsis]

I used system restore to restore it to a point a couple days before, but now it's being a little slow. I'm thinking of bringing it in anyway before my warranty is up, because at future shop they give my com free checkups for viruses if you're under warranty.

[† L4ugh]

Taking it to a professional would be the better option here especially if it's free. I would still recommend trying out ccleaner in the future. You could even ask the techs what software they recommend for cleaning the registry. Hope you can get things fixed soon, and sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[Ellipsis]

well, after it started working i deleted a few programs that i didn't need, since last time it did something similar it mostly was just running out of space