Speaker Icon Missing. Windows Explorer SLOW.

shottyjotty

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Mar 12, 2013
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Hi, strange problem and I can't figure out what's going on.

So here's what happens when I start my PC.

Windows loads fine (all though sometimes I get stuck at the loading screen with a constant spinning circle all though usually a reboot fixes this straight away, and it doesn't happen very often anyway, I assumed it was a Windows 8 bug of some sort) so I put in my password, desktop loads up (I have it set to skip the metro screen)

The mouse turns to the hourglass, I can't click anything, and nothing loads for about 3 - 4 minutes. Blank desktop, nothing in my task bar, can't click the start button. But when it does load, everything is fine, speed wise. It's not slow at all.

But every time now (used to happen sometimes but not every time) the speaker icon is missing from the notification area, and i can't change the volume or mute/unmute. To get it to re-appear, I have to restart Windows Explorer. Again, I have to wait a few minutes, and any program I have open stops responding. Eventually, every thing is fine, and the speaker icon is there.

I've tried a lot of things - virus scans, malware scans, clean boot, registry clean - nothing. The only thing that works is safe mode. The problem doesn't exist in safe mode.

Other symptoms include random restarting, all though this happened before this problem appeared, and not very often. I also get an "error" as Windows is loading my desktop. The same sound it makes when you change the volume slider. Also, wifi cuts out randomly, but only for a few seconds, and my old laptop does that as well so I don't know if it should be included.

Please, any suggestions. This is really bugging me. I'm a noob at software so please don't tell me to do anything in depth and expect me to know how to do it straight away. Last time I queried was just about the error sound at startup, and I had people telling me to download all sorts of programs and I had no idea how to use them. I asked but the thread just died.

It looks like a problem with Windows Explorer, but I wouldn't begin to know how to fix that. Oh, and I have system restored to no avail as well.

Specs:
gigabyte ga-78lmt-usb3 - 760g chipset
FX - 8370
R9 270 DD XFX
Kingston Hyper X RAM (white)
 
Solution
Hi,

Since the problem isn't there in safe mode, I would create a new user account to see if it's not a problem with the account.

you might want to run a chkdsk on the disk and sfc /scannow fow windows integrity.
Downloiad a hard disk sentinel to rule out failing hard drive.

Hi,

Since the problem isn't there in safe mode, I would create a new user account to see if it's not a problem with the account.

you might want to run a chkdsk on the disk and sfc /scannow fow windows integrity.
Downloiad a hard disk sentinel to rule out failing hard drive.

 
Solution

shottyjotty

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Mar 12, 2013
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Chkdsk runs fine. In safe mode, windows told me there was a problem with my hard drive, which is not true, I have run extensive tests on it and they've all come up fine.

I tried the event viewer - and to my recollection, nothing came up. It was blank. I had about 4 separate dialogue boxes with columns, all blank. I'll re run it later to double check. Unless, you have wait a long time for it to load? I waited about 5 minutes before closing it.

This is stupid, if I have to re-install Windows, this will now be the fourth time. In less than a year. Would refreshing help? I will lose valuable data either way...

Thanks for the replies.
 

Rowdyrauderson

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I wouldn't jump to re installing windows yet. The event logs can take a while to populate. And the more events recorded, the longer it takes. Make sure you are looking at the logs under the dropdown options on the left side of the screen and not the front page with the separate boxes.
 

shottyjotty

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Okay, so there's a lot of errors under 'System' that say the source is 'disk'. Most of them mention a bad block. I have used the Western Digital HDD software, and that detected no errors, if that's of any significance. There sure are a lot of errors and warnings in the event viewer, however, and most of them seem to be saying the same thing.
 

Rowdyrauderson

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In my experience, software to check disks rarely finds the bad ones. You could run chkdsk, but that usually does nothing, Is your HDD old? It might be worth grabbing a back up to transfer everything to.
 

shottyjotty

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No it's not old, a year at most. There are also a few errors with certain programs in event viewer, but I've uninstalled the programs and nothing helped.

One warning caught my eye : "The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device SWD\WPDBUSENUM\{74f1be16-99ed-11e4-8274-74d4359e32e6}#0000002E91000000." Source is "Kernel-PnP"

And a warning: Source: "Winnit" : "Custom dynamic link libraries are being loaded for every application. The system administrator should review the list of libraries to ensure they are related to trusted applications. Please visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197571 for more information."

And another: "Name resolution for the name www.jewreview.net timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded."

Incase they are significant. Should I just refresh my PC?
 

Rowdyrauderson

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The first two are driver and application issues, these will need to be checked.
Use windows key + R and type in msconfig
Under services at the top, click hide all microsoft services at the bottom, now click disable all.
Disable all your startup programs too.
This will stop some of the extra services that you probably don't need running right away. But once you load a program the needed service will still start. Then if you have issues you can find out where they originate. See if this makes your issues less severe.
As for the last error, hit windows key+r again and type in "cmd"
now type ipconfig /flushdns