WWW Woes

I've been having computer problems tonight - and my technical expert is in the UK....Noooooooooooooooo!! Eventually I managed to get my laptop working again, but it was definitely more through luck than judgement. I was just surfing the net and the screen went black..never a good sign. I did a restart and windows went through a disk check...surely an even worse sign!! Not a problem I thought, I have the old laptop upstairs - it still works. Not tonight it doesn't!! It wouldn't connect to the internet!! Thankfully my new one now seems to have recovered from its little huff and is talking to me (and the net!) now. I was beginning to have WWW - Web Withdrawal Wobbles!!