Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

Your goal here, though, is to burrow a few levels deeper into the Control

Panel. Choose the Hardware tab and then click the Device Manager button.

Get in the habit of coming here first anytime your machine is feeling poorly

or making you sick. The Device Manager gives you an instant check on the

status of all major pieces of hardware and is the gateway to deeper probes

and troubleshooting guides.

Your first assignment is to eyeball the page. In the best of all possible worlds,

you see the names of all the devices and nothing more; if Windows has

detected a problem, it raises a flag. Three possible conditions exist, one of

which is good, one of which is troubling, and one of which is officially bad

news. The initial display of a typical Device Manager is shown in Figure 5-3.

Good News: If you see nothing other than the name of a device, the

system is aware of its presence and has detected no problems. This is a

good thing. You can, though, double-click and open the device to read

about the details of the device driver software it employs, the resources

it uses, and (for some elements) some of the hardware settings.

Troubling News:If you see an exclamation point (!) in a yellow circle,

Windows is warning you of its concern about a potential conflict. Well, I

Figure 5-3:

The initial

display

of the

Windows

Device

Manager.

68 Part II: Explaining What Could Possibly Go Wrong