someone tried to hack my gmail?

[Mark]

last night google notified me that somebody tried to hack my gmail (and facebook )account from NY (i live in oregon),but didn't specify if they succeeded in getting into it.i only have a Gateway laptop (with norton 360 free trial AV Suite)and smartphone (with AVG Free AV). i use Chrome Browser and my WiFi router has WPA 2 activated. i was worried they may have succeeded in doing so and changed my password, i then a couple hours later just deleted the Gmail account altogether and just set up a new one (but the facebook remains with new password).
i'm concerned that by checking my gmail a malware program/phishing program may have been inserted somewhere in my laptop to steal info(passwords,etc.)
1) i ran 2 'quickscans' and 1 Full System Scan,as well as a redundant Hard drive scan and scanned my facebook wall using the Norton 360, it turned up nothing found other than 4 cookies which it removed. also im not noticing any problems with my laptop. did i do enough to stop this hacker and check my laptop for malware?
2) the next day i get a notification that someone is google searching my name (i'm assuming it's the same person trying to get the new gmail address so they can try again.
what else can i do to protect myself from further hacking attempts? im a student and can't afford to lose my laptop from malware and i can't afford a better AV Suite like Kapersky right now. i never open suspicious unknown e-mails with attachments either. i am new to computers and the web but learn very quickly.
can someone recommend a good Free AV Suite to install once my free trial runs out? any assistance and advice to further actions on my part to stop these hacking attempts would be greatly appreciated, Thank You

[Sean Dalt]

change your password and mark that person on the spam list!

[MOHAN]

First of all you should change your password.Please remember while define your password, It should not match your first name,middle name,last name.Try to define Password with strong characters.
Please remember that you should not share your password to anybody and after check mails remove your history from your browsers or you can set auto remove history in Browsers. Change your password weekly or monthly. At last, Please enable Windows Firewall On.

[DunbarPappy®ϟϟ]

This is not indicative of a straight assault on your system, but more a leveraged probe into your Internet accounts.
These things are possible because of various leaks of information about yourself either you or others have made.
Some jerkweed somewhere has put these bits and pieces together, and surmised some sites or services are being used by you, and they are poking at the more common ones to see what can be milked or accessed.
(Could be a close associate or acquaintance???).
"Spear phishing" and social engineering can not be ruled out.

Sidebar:
Mail accounts are useful to crooks because they are often 'anchored' to a single account or mail addy.
That in turn can be leveraged to further advance probes into your other accounts.

(How a well-known technology writer Mat Honan had his accounts hacked: http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-364.htm
Use wordfind (ctrl + F) with this " In the space of one hour " to jump to the related discussion)

Article on how to set up a multi-account consolidating strategy.
Email for every Service – Stop using the same email for everything!
http://www.jd7.org/2012/08/10/email-for-...verything/

[IT-Pro]

run msconfig and look at your start up files.
Remove things that aren't needed for startup

Go to "uninstall" and see what programs you have. Anything weird here? Google any that you are unsure of.

Change your passwords on a regular basis.

The notification from google could be fraudulent themselves.

[sabrina]

what was the exact msg, that system wrote you?