JanetG 0 Newbie Poster

My Sony Vaio laptop VGN-NW1257 (Windows 7 upgrade) has recently started causing me problems. I always close all programs and then close the lid to my laptop. About 30% of the time, when I lift the lid and "touch a key" to bring up the screen, I get a bing sound no matter what I touch. I've even tried touching the green button in case it has gone in hyperation but that doesn't help. The only way I can get my system back up and running is to completely turn it off and wait fo the screen to come up that tells me that Windows was improperly shut down. Once I tell it to start back up in safe mode it works fine for a few days and then does it again. I also use Windows Live for my hotmail. Around the same time I started having problems with Internet Explorer 8. About 75% of the time when I try to log onto the internet or my hotmail account, I get the "Internet Explorer cannot display web page" for 2 to 3 attempts in a row and then it will work. What's going on?