laptop won't boot

[Perpsoh]

Hey everyone, last night we were watching a movie with VLC player on my girlfriends laptop when the screen froze with horizontal lines all the way down it, and the computer locked up. I hard rebooted it (press and holding the power button) and it started up normally. I logged into windows, let it finish booting up, then started the media file again (seeking it to the point where it froze up) it started playing for about 5 seconds then froze up, with the lines again. I pressed and held the power button to turn it off and left it off for the night.

Now this morning, I go to turn it on, and what happens is this: I press the power button, the lights turn on on the keyboard display, but nothing shows on the screen, the screen doesn't even appear to be turning on. I can hear the HDD making some noise, but it never shows anything on the screen. After about 40 seconds the lights on the keyboard shut off for about 2 seconds the come back on again and the process starts over as if it is restarting.

Anyone know what this could be? Virus? I don't think so b/c i've had the file on my computer for a while, this is the first time watching it though. I've never seen anything like this in computers. I am fairly desktop savey but know nothing about laptops. Could it be hardware?

specs:

HP dv9000
AMD Turion 64x2
17" screen
140gig HDD
2gig ram
Only a year old, bought brand new from comp usa, no extended warrenty

Thanks in advance for any ideas/advise!

[glc]

It's a hardware failure or a serious overheat. Unfortunately, it's most likely the motherboard.