Okay, my Gateway NV53A laptop will not boot.

Hello everyone, I understand since it is near a holiday that it might take a while to receive an answer, nevertheless any answer is greatly appreciated.

So a couple of days ago my laptop was running a little sloppy so I shut it down for awhile and about 3 hours later I tried to boot my laptop and I wouldn't boot. Every time I try it either stays at the windows 7 loading screen or on a black screen. So my question is a 2 pronged question: Is this a internal hardware problem, or is it some program/registry/virus issue? And how to fix this? I really don't have any one at the moment as I just payed bills and bought food for thanksgiving dinner, but I do realize that I might have to pay somebody.

So thanks for reading and hope everyone has a great holiday.