Hello Shawn! Whilst I cannot answer your “blinking screen” issue, I can hopefully solve your “plug & play issue” I had this issue back when I owned a Microsoft Inspiron laptop. I had come to the conclusion that the battery was bad. [br]
Attempting to try and solve your blinking issue, I need to know a couple things… How old is your hard-drive, or what kind of hard drive is it even? When you boot up your computer, do you hear a whirring, like an engine or turbine? Does your computer do any beeping at you after or during the blinking? These are a couple of things you can try looking at, that I know of.