Hi David,
OK. If this is one of the laptops with dual graphics cards where it will often use an Intel graphics chip for simple tasks and switch to Nvidia embedded card for more complex graphics/gaming?. Stop. Get prepared for a more complicated process. Boot using media. Do a text mode expert install - this will ask you lots of questions but, critically, will allow you to produce a minimal installation that is text mode only. When asked, add non-free and contrib repositories: uncheck the box for a graphical / X Windows environment. Once a minimal text mode install is complete, allow the computer to shut down. Reboot, use apt or aptitude to install and run the bumblebee program to set up the nvidia drivers and the dependencies you need to build modules: you can use either the free drivers which will give you nouveau or the proprietary driver. Build and install any necessary modules. At no point until after that is completed, should you try installing X or a graphic environment. Shutdown and reboot. At that point, use the tasksel program to add the graphics environment and desktop environment that you want.
Do this in the wrong order and it _will_ fail / appear to work briefly then randomly crash - I had very similar problems with one series of MSI laptops - trying to explain this to someone who didn't understand Linux at all was painful - I think it took me five or six installs and a couple of days to work out a passable install sequence that worked consistently thereafter.
Andy C