Stopped taking pictures . . .

The last time I used my camera, I was at an indoor birthday party, and took lots of great pictures. However, I did notice it seemed to be taking longer and longer to display the pictures after I snapped a shot. I downloaded the images to my PC with no problems. About a week later, I tried to use my camera, and I got no picture on the LCD monitor when I put the camera in camera or movie mode (for taking pictures or movies). The lens extends with no problem and the shutter opens and closes. The pictures already on the camera display fine. Also ... the camera will go through the motions of taking a picture and even stores the pics on the camera ... however the pics are black or very dark grey. When the camera is in picture taking mode, it shows a snowy dark grey almost black screen, and this is all I get in my photos as well. One odd thing I noticed after this started happening is that the settings were all completely reset. I had a pic selected for startup, but it defaulted back to the CoolPix image and all other settings went to default. I have tried taking the batteries out for extended periods as well as resetting the camera to default settings. Again, the camera goes through all of the motions, but nothing comes out on the pics or displays on the screen when taking pictures of movies. I otherwise had grown really fond of this camera after getting to know its idiosyncracies. From material I have read online, it sounds like having the camera repaired may be more expensive than buying a new or refurbished model. Does anyone have a solution to this problem? Eternal gratitude to anyone who shares this with me. Thanks, Ray