Gateway Laptop Freezing on Boot up

Hey there,
So I'm your typical 'noob' at anything Technical. So I've resorted to the internet to help me at 5am.

I have a Gateway laptop Windows 8, I believe the year is 2012 or 2013, and when I hit the power button, it starts up, but It won't load to the log in screen. It freezes at the 'Gateway' screen. I've searched , and the only things I've found are 'Hold shift and repeatedly hit F10' or 'Go into Safe mode'. I've tried these, and even the 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete'. Nothing happens, although when I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete, it reloads the screen. Since I'm running on Windows 8, and It freezes before it loads the log in screen, I have no way to boot in safe mode. I would need to access the start menu, which I obviously can't do.

Over the past few months, it has started to slow down, and even freeze. If I had fully shut down the laptop, it would do this, but I would just have to power off, remove the battery, put the battery back in, and start up. It has gotten more frequent and worse.

Earlier tonight I tried to sign into my Skype account and everything froze, for the past 2 hours I have tried restarting, removing the battery, everything I can find. Nothing has helped so far. Anyone have a suggestion?