Is it my laptop, or my installation of Vista?

[Jay Moore]

I'm having some bizarre problems with my computer.

The last week or so, after numerous reboots, the system icons for mixer,
battery and network will not appear. They used to disappear once in a while
and come back after a reboot, but lately, I've not ben able get these icons
back. The options for them are greyed out.

The other problem I've got is while my DVD-RW drive works just fine...I have
to go to Device Manager and scan for new hardware to get it to appear in
explorer. It doesn't seem to matter if i've got a disc in there or not.

I'm wondering if it's an issue of maybe I've just worn this laptop out (it's
been my only computer since April and has been used, pretty much every day
since then) or if maybe there's something funky with my Vista I need to look
at.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I'm having some bizarre problems with my computer.

The last week or so, after numerous reboots, the system icons for mixer,
battery and network will not appear. They used to disappear once in a
while and come back after a reboot, but lately, I've not ben able get
these icons back. The options for them are greyed out.

The other problem I've got is while my DVD-RW drive works just fine...I
have to go to Device Manager and scan for new hardware to get it to appear
in explorer. It doesn't seem to matter if i've got a disc in there or not.

I'm wondering if it's an issue of maybe I've just worn this laptop out
(it's been my only computer since April and has been used, pretty much
every day since then) or if maybe there's something funky with my Vista I
need to look at.

No, you have not worn out your laptop.

However, it might be an idea at this point to start over with a fresh
installation.

Save all of your important stuff before wiping out the present installation

If you do this, get all of the updates first. Then download and install the
following programs..

AVG, Avast or Avira free version

Malwarebytes - anti malware

WinPatrol - warns if a Trojan tries to install itself into start-up

Netmeter 1.13 - will show traffic through the network card. Useful for
seeing traffic that may not have been initiated by you

All free, btw

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Jay Moore]

did not mean to post this twice, was told by MS MAil the first time i tried
to post that i wasn't logged in, and the mail crashed, i guess it went
rhough anyway.

as far as AV software goes, i've got and paid for ca AntiVirus, so i am
using that. and i've also got pretty decent malware protection already (in
fact, the time I got hit with Trujan.Vundo it stopped it from getting too
infected).

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

did not mean to post this twice, was told by MS MAil the first time i
tried to post that i wasn't logged in, and the mail crashed, i guess it
went rhough anyway.

as far as AV software goes, i've got and paid for ca AntiVirus, so i am
using that. and i've also got pretty decent malware protection already (in
fact, the time I got hit with Trujan.Vundo it stopped it from getting too
infected).

If you think that you anti-virus/malware protection is up to scratch, and
yet you still get infections, you must look at your safe hex practices..


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Jay Moore]

If you think that you anti-virus/malware protection is up to scratch, and
yet you still get infections, you must look at your safe hex practices..

No, I never said this was an infection. I don't see malware actually doing
this..i'm just wondering if it was say a physical problem with my drive or
some strange bug with Vista...as i said, I had the EXACT same thing happen
before on an XP machine, but there was no viruses or anything like that on
the system.

At least, I'm pretty sure. I'm running CA AV which has picked up everything
it's supposed to and sutff it hasn't...and CA combined with Windows Defender
stopped a Trojan.Vundo takeover attempt on this machine.

No, I just can't figure out what would cause a drive to not appear till
after scanning for new hardware whereas the virtural drive constantly shows
up. I'm still leaning toward an aging drive.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

No, I never said this was an infection. I don't see malware actually doing
this..i'm just wondering if it was say a physical problem with my drive or
some strange bug with Vista...as i said, I had the EXACT same thing happen
before on an XP machine, but there was no viruses or anything like that on
the system.

At least, I'm pretty sure. I'm running CA AV which has picked up
everything it's supposed to and sutff it hasn't...and CA combined with
Windows Defender stopped a Trojan.Vundo takeover attempt on this machine.

No, I just can't figure out what would cause a drive to not appear till
after scanning for new hardware whereas the virtural drive constantly
shows up. I'm still leaning toward an aging drive.

How old is the machine?


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Jay Moore]

i'm not really exactly sure..as far as usage life..it didn't get any till
the beginning of april when i took ownership of it, and it's been my only
computer since then...so my answer is quite a lot...my keyboard and trackpad
have really visible wear. but the machine was manfactured in december of 06
and probably purchased about a year before i got it..it saw maybe 100 hours
of use in that year.

I upgraded the ram to 4gb about a month after i got it. it's an acer aspire
5100.
Turion 64, ATI Xpress 1100 video/chipset, dual-layer dvd burner..it's held
up to
me this long so, it's turned out to not be a bad little system.

i took someone's advice about the system icons and, they appear to be back
and working fine now..and the last reboot after updates the drive appeared.
i burned a CD with it this morning and it all seems to be working fine now.