Laptop starts up, then goes black

Hello, my laptop, ASUS Notebook G73jh series running Windows 7 Home Premium, will start up...get to the "Windows is starting" graphic...then screen will go black and stay black. Blue light that shows things are "processing" will flicker and glow, flicker and glow for quite a while, then it will die down and just barely flicker every once in a while i.e. it SOUNDS like its processing...but nothing on screen, no cursor, no bar, no anything.
I can reboot it into safe mode, though I dont know what to do from there to troubleshoot my issue. Any help? I am on my very old desktop, waiting desperately for some direction.
Thank you in advance.
Irish