HP Laptop windows 7 will not boot up or will take 20 minutes

I have a HP lap top ( Pavilion dv7 ) windows 7
1 terrabite hard drive , intel core i7

recently if you say restart or shut down and then try to later on restart the computer it will act as if it is loading up , the screen goes from black to the lighter color the words will come up and even state that it is "Starting windows" and even have the little windows icon floating.. however it will not actually start up. I have done all the self tests that u can find in the help screen if I push esc when I first turn in it. (there is no 'safe mode)

Once out of 10 tries If I wait about 10 or more minutes on the starting up screen it will actually boot up all the way , however the very next time I stay shut down, restart , sleep , or hibernate the process starts over , waiting on a almost blank screen.

I have set the power options now to just never shut off or shut down or sleep or hibernate , also have it always plugged in so its not running out of power and also have a table/fan so it doesn't over heat as it did get hot ( I did not have a table/fan for the first year of having it.

Any idea's of what to do I contacted HP and they have suggested a new computer...

thank-you

I had tried your advice and gone through the steps , first attempt I was able to uncheck a lot of the unnessasary items however after the automaticly needed restart the same thing occoured and also my cursor (touch pad) was not active) Had to force a shut down (with power button) and then after waiting over 20 minutes was able to get back to the log in screen with an active cursor.

any other suggestions ?

I would Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get rid of the HP bloatware which throttles and corrupts Win7.

At the minimum I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware.

Once you have WIn7 which is not smothered by HP's worst load of bloatware, if problems persist work through the Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7