[ubuntu] Keyboard, touchpad, and sound all not working in Laptop- Ubuntu 16.04

I have an HP Pavilion DM1z laptop from 2012 with Ubuntu 16.04 recently installed on a clean hard drive. The install went fine and all, and everything works fine with the initial boot up. However, some time randomly after I login to my account, the touchpad, sound (including headphones), and all of the keyboard EXCEPT the top row (F1 through F12, the brightness buttons etc.) all stop working. I am typing this right now from a USB keyboard and mouse. Without an exteal mouse or keyboard, the only way to get the computer to respond, other than the top row of the laptop's keyboard, is to hold down the power button until it shuts off, then reboot it. It always works at first, during boot up and initial login. It's sometime after that it glitches out. Sometimes it's after I switch between my administrator account and a guest account, but not necessarily immediately. Other times if I plug in a VGA cable to an exteal monitor it will work fine, then after a few minutes, the laptop itself becomes unresponsive. What is happening? The program is useless to me in such a state. It's as if something happens that disables the hardware of the laptop from communicating with the operating system.
Please note, I am brand new to linux. I basically grew up on windows, zero experience at all.