[sanfranciscoe]

Hello.
Specs: Gateway MT6828 Laptop computer, Vista, 2.5 years old.

Today while looking at a video on flickr on facebook - all of the sudden, my computer just almost violently screwed up. It started making all these loud noises, it heated up alot, the screen went blue, with some words on it (like if there was something wrong and it is telling you) except I couldn't read it because all the corrrupted letters and lots of colors were happening. It was so loud and alarming, I just pulled out the battery and plug to make it stop.

It wouldn't start. Then after awhile, I pulled the battery. and started it through the plug.

It actually came on and said do I want to start normally. Unfortunately, I picked this option, and then a blue sccreen came on, blank except for color lines at the bottom.

I pulled the plug again, and it has not been able to come on at all even to do that. Now I get a little "blip" sound after I push on, a blip sound like it went off.

The video I saw on facebook was safe, since lots of other people saw it and commented.

I did download a few photos today on a couple sites.

I have sbcglobal protection that they offer, but nothing else. I may not have updated my vista updates recently.

I am a novice computer person, and don't understand computer talk.

Did I ruin my computer?
What do you think might have caused this ?
Why was it acting like this?
What should I do? Thank you very much.

[TekTime]

Hello.

I don't think Facebook caused the problem you are having. What kind of "noise" did you hear? How do you know the computer heated up? When you turn the computer on, do you hear any fans spinning; any beeps ?

(This definitely sounds like a hardware issue, not software/internet or related.)

[sanfranciscoe]

The sound was quite loud, I can't totally remember it a day later, but not a normal humming sound, it caused me to want to get the computer turned off in a hurry.

It did immediately heat up, heat coming thru the left side and very warm to the touch. probably some spinning there.

Only that one time would it start up, til i pressed start normal. Now it does nothing, except the light comes on on the on button. thats it. silence.

Could a virus have caused this? Did I ruin my computer?

[TekTime]

It's difficult to say exactly what the problem is, but I can assure you that YOU didn't ruin your computer based on what you said so far, and a virus wouldn't cause a computer to totally die - unable to power on. It sounds as if you had a heat issue, and possibly damaged hardware as a result.

You may want to take it to a shop if your computer doesn't power on at all anymore.

(Some things that come to mind that can be the culprit are: damaged motherboard or fried CPU)