When I turn my laptop on it makes a sound as if it's starting up but then doesn't. After about the 20th time I try to turn it on, it finally goes all the way and turns on. Anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

if you see no POST/BIOS information, it's probably hardware related. when did this start? what happened right before it started acting up? is the laptop still under warranty?

No I don't see any POST/BIOS info. Suddenly started doing this only a few days ago. I nbthink right before it started happening I downloaded some attachments from my work emails to the desktop. That's about the only thing I might have done differently... So you think it's hardware related? Many thanks for your response!

it's probably not a virus - a program designed to spread doesn't want to prevent your PC from booting; plus you'd at least be able to get to the BIOS... do you get the same behavior running off battery? AC with battery? AC without battery? this definitely sounds hardware related, so if this machine is not under warranty you might be sol (unless you have a bunch of identical laptop components lying around, which is unlikely since every laptop is built proprietary). my only advice is the next time you are able to bring it up, make sure your data is backed up to an external drive.