ASUS Laptop Failure, Virus or hardware?

My ASUS K52F Laptop Suddenly began loading pages and applications VERY slowly. Over a few hours it lost functions (sound card, internet, program list, restore access, screen brightness control) and now will not even allow me to sign in (defaults to secondary signin option).
I have been having problems with the power supply plug port for some time. Could that be somehow related? Otherwise I think that my hard drive is corrupted or failing.
Sure could use some advice or other assistance.

 

Typically hardware problems are either your computer works or it doesnt or it constantly has BSOD.

It sounds more like software like a virus or some malware. I would start by running programs like MalwareBytes, if you can anyway.

If you cant run it at all and there is not a lot of files on there that you are worried about using then you may want to consider doing a clean install of Windows.

 

Ad-aware is a good tool. And turn off the real-time checking to end up on a less than a paranoia-inducing nag-level. It's more than sufficient to just check files you get from places you don't trust before installing. And then just running a cleanup once in a while.

 

1. Your charger is unrelated. I agree with Hutsady; this sounds like malware.

2. Malwarebytes and Ad-aware are booth good tools. In fact, a lot of legitimate anti-virus programs are good. My recommendation is to run whatever AV program you choose to in 'Safe Mode with Networking', with all non-Microsoft services turned off and all startup programs disabled (with Wi-Fi being the only exception, so that you can update your AV programs).

 

At this point, I also feel that it is a virus/malware issue. I can copy and view files using Puppy Linux. Booting from a Norton disk also brings the computer up with good screen brightness and seems to work. Problem is I have yet to find a way to boot a current virus definitions disk from Norton and the checkdisk function in Puppy Linux is not working.
It would help if I could locate a Win7 disk to boot from and try a repair that way.
Otherwise, I am thinking I can pull the drive and run it in an external case on another computer and then virus scan it or otherwise run repair options.
Any thoughts??

 

There are bootable virus scanners like avast rescue: avast! Support | FAQs

Otherwise pulling the drive and scanning it on another system is a way forward. As long as you have autorun disabled, etc. so that you don't possibly infect the host.

 

Some features on live OSes are limited, if available, so you do have that one caveat to keep in mind. Are you able to update Norton's definitions after you've loaded it? I know that, for example, you can run Malwarebytes from a disc/disk and still update its definition database.