Weird Issues Suddenly

With the laptop below. It started last night when my screen flashed briefly and lost the Aero functionality. I went to go turn it back on but the screen flashed back turning it back on. Since then, though, my desktop items are going invisible (they're still there as the explorer still sees them) and games like WoW are suddenly chugging when they weren't just yesterday. Not much has changed recently except that I updated my graphics drivers to 280.26, but everything seemed to work fine after doing that. Should I roll back the drivers a bit, or is it something else?

 

Most likely drivers rollback see if it helps

 

I rolled back to the 280.19 drivers and unfortunately the EXACT same problems still exist. WoW is still chugging and my desktop shortcuts are still invisible. Uncertain as to why this is still happening. I'll check for malware.

 

that sounds more like a virus of some sorts or a dodgy windows update or virus database update.
driver shouldnt cause them sorts of problems.
have you thought of turning the clock back with system restore a few days to see if that helps.

 

Norton 360 has been running continuously and keeping itself updated. I also ran both Malwarebytes and Ad-Aware and they found nothing, either. So I don't think it's malware or virus related.

And besides the scanners, nothing seems to be hogging system resources according to monitors.

I do not have Windows setting up backups. Norton 360 has backups itself, but I don't know if it's enough to be a rollback to a few days prior.

Overall, this is weird...

 

Well, the desktop icons have stop going invisible, but I'm still experiencing weird framerate issues with WoW (unsure of other games, have not yet tried any except WoW). This is starting to get annoying.

 

I gave DXHR a shot to see what would happen. While playable, it was a bit slower than normal. Not much but it was noticeable. This along with WoW starting to chug when it never did before. Ugh, trying to actually pin down the problem is hard here...

 

ARGH, I finally found out what it was. It was my power settings, set to Quiet Office mode instead of High Performance mode. But I have no idea WHY my power settings changed, I never change out of High Performance mode. Well, as long as I can have things work normally again.

 

have you noticed your time or date change lately. not sure if it affects performance settings but it could be your cmos battery.

at least you got it sorted.

 

Lol you found out faster than I read the topic, but yeah the power settings change things like hidding desktop shortcuts, disabling certain aero interface etc.

 

Perhaps your new drivers changed your power settings?