On 9/19/2018 8:00 AM, John Jones wrote:
When I left on holiday 2 weeks ago my laptop (samsung bought 2011
running windows 7 home premium 64 bit) worked perfectly.
When I booted today it got as far as the desktop screen and then silence
fell.
I rebooted and everything seemed ok again. Until returning after lunch
it woke up, thought about life, went unresponsive, and then gave me the
black screen of death.
I am obviously somewhat perturbed, although by posting this clearly it
is ok at present.
I guess this is a FAQ, but how can I track down any issues, and is it
time to buy a new computer?
Cheers
JJ

I've had weird problems like that when the CMOS battery
was dying.
Had enough juice to let me configure it, but would randomly
fail to boot or lock up.
Replacing the CMOS battery fixed it.

Probably difficult to get at it, but put it on your list
of things to do when you run out of easier things to try.