Win XP on Laptop - Won't shut down

I've been having this problem with my laptop for about 2 weeks now

I go to shut it down for the night, and it will go to "windows network connections is not responding - end now"

So I click end now, and it comes up again, followed by about 4 other "end now" msg's after each other.

Now, it will shut down after about 10min, but that is just far too long to wait

Also, when my laptop is on and I close the top to bring it to stand by mode, it wont come back. It will "resume windows" then the screen will go black.

Any ideas?

Thanks