Vista - Virus... or problem with windows vista??

Just over the past few days, my poor laptop hasnt been very well. I was using internet/msn one night and the screen went completely blank except for my desktop background, and my clock/stickynotes/calendar thing on the far right. Not knowing how to fix it i waited a while, then switched off my laptop. I switched it back on again and thats where the problems started, just to get on the internet right now its took me little under 3 hours to get it started up and working, as its so slow and keeps crashing. Im getting the little (not responding) thing a lot, which is really annoying. It wont open programs for a good long while, usually taking a LOT longer than it usually does, when i press cntrl+alt+delete to get the security options up i get a blank black screen and a little window that says 'logon process failed to create security options dialog'. I originally thought this was a virus so i uninstalled my AVG antivirus and installed the newest one which is 8.0 or something, and scanned every folder on my pc... and nothing but a few tracking cookies, which left me stumped. Ive got over 40gb spare memory, deleted all files i dont need, so its not clogged up with crap. I'm not sure if this is a problem with my CPU, overheating or something, which is why its taking so damned long to process things, whether its a problem with windows vista, or i have a very well hidden virus. Any suggestions?? im tearing my hair out!!

Try Avast Home, run in safe mode or run a boot time scan. Scan with Malwarebytes and Spybot SD too, see what you get.

avast! - Download antivirus software for spyware and virus protection
Malwarebytes.org
The home of Spybot-S&D!

I did boot it into safe mode and ran a scan with AVG, but it didnt scan all the files, it skipped a few like my music folders and picture folders etc, and it reported they were "locked" in safe mode, so it didnt scan them!

It's not going to hurt to try the others. One antivirus/antispyware program might pick up on things other ones may miss.

Aye thats what i thought (im awful paranoid) .. so thats why i have three currently installed - but i guess something got past them huh.

You only want one major AV installed and monitoring. Not AVG and Avast together. You can have more than one antispyware with one AV though like malwarebytes and spybot with Avast or AVG usually with out problems. Two major AV will most likely cause conflicting problems with each other.

Ive got .. AVG8.0, Ad-Aware SE personal, and SUPERAntivirus Professional, the super one i only installed tonight because it detects more than my avg. I decided im gona try wipe my system clean anyway, see what happens then.

Well if that's what you want to do then go ahead, if you don't have anything really worth saving or have already saved what's important to you. That'll do it. Just have a major AV of your choice actively monitoring all the time and do regular scans with it and any other AS app you have.

Aye, ive ogot about 4 dvds with all my stuff on it, i had to do this several times with my pc.. but i didnt back anything up so i lost everything. hope it works!

Yep, good luck.