Geek Squad Repair issues?

A year ago, my daughter saved her own money to but a lap top computer.
We bought it, and an extended service contract from Best Buys.

It proved to be a lemon, and after several repairs (motherboard, hard drive, etc) they replaced it with another computer of a different make.

I paid for another extended contract…but when this machine had issues, they are trying to pawn it off on "software problems"—not covered and want to charge nearly 200 bucks to fix it.

Everyone who’s heard of the problem think the issue is power/ hardware related. While we were waiting to have the puter serviced, every customer was told the same thing "If the issue is spyware, it’s not covered…"

I think they are simply trying to weasel out of the contract, and "software" is just an excuse. Has anyone else had a similar experience with Geek Squad? It also took them 11 days to run a simple diagnostic. That’s absurd. So is paying 25 percent of the price of a product not even a year old.
My daughter says the screen goes black at random. She also said that re-booting doesn’t always bring it back.

She has a Toshiba laptop, and twice in the last year we had to replace the power cord. The first one used to get so hot it could almost burn your skin, but the latest doesn’t do that.

We use Avast and Ad Aware for anti-virus.

This doesn’t sound like any virus I have ever heard of. Opinions?
Even worse…when we retrieved the laptop, they tried to get me to sign a form that said it "had been repaired to my satisfaction.

THEN we found two new icons on the computer, one for a direct internet connection none of us had ever used, or heard, and the other for files equal odd.

Wonder what the boys do on their breaks?

What processes should be running in my task manager with no applications open? What is safe to remove?

Where is malicious software or folders commonly found and how do i remove these items?

I own a Toshiba Laptop if that helps. I got some things on here I would like to keep therefore I cant restore my harddrive. Thanks for your help guys.

I have a Toshiba laptop that I’m trying to free-up space on. In Add/Remove Programs, there are many entries from Toshiba–which are completely necessary and which are not, and what are they used for?

Synaptics Pointing Device Driver
TOSHIBA Assist
TOSHIBA ConfigFree
Toshiba Controls Utility
TOSHIBA PC Diagnostic Tool
Toshiba Registration
TOSHIBA SD Memory Card Format
TOSHIBA Software Upgrades
Toshiba Touchpad Utility
Toshiba Utility

Also, if a program is not necessary, is it beneficial? If so, how do I run it?