New Dell having a driver problem after installing SP1

Dell Inspiron 1721 Vista Home Premium 250 GB Hard Drive 3 GB Ram AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor TK-57 1.9 GHz DSL Connection Yesterday, I returned a new Gateway laptop that was bad out of the box. I exchanged it and upgraded to a beautiful Dell Inspiron. The unit was fast and gorgeous. However, I now think I've fallen into computer twilight zone. As soon as I did the setup, I went to device manager to make sure everything was working - - and everything was good to go - - no exclamation points. Then, I wanted to install Zone Alarm first thing, which is my favorite security suite and I have a subscription. So, I ran the Windows Update, rebooted, and disconnected from the internet; then uninstalled the trial version of Norton's and attempted to install Zone Alarm. But Zone Alarm said to install SP1 first. I'm really new to Vista, but thought, "How hard can that be?" So I quickly installed AVG Free for protection while I got things worked out, since I had just uninstalled the security software. Then, went back to Windows Update, but SP1 wasn't showing up. There was a conflict and I couldn't get SP1 - - the Dell tech on Dell's Tech Chat last night said to get Microsoft SP1 help - - so today, after hours of time with a Microsoft Agent, he finally was able to get SP1 to download and install; however, during his time helping me by Easy Assist Remote Access, he shut down a lot of things and uninstalled some others trying to stop the conflict. Trying to get all of them running again, I did a diagnostic a while ago and got the message that "The average disk queue length is 2. The disk may be at its maximum transfer capacity due to throughput and disk seeks." Huh? Things are opening a little slower than they were before - - does that have anything to do with that? Does something need to be changed or fixed? Also, the Windows Diagnostic gave 6 alerts that the Isatap Adaptor won't load drivers. Thought that was strange since everything was good before the SP1 install - - went back to Device Manager and sure enough, yellow triangle with exclamation point in front of the 2 Isatap Adaptors (In the Network Adaptors). Checked it out and tried to update the drivers but Device Manager said it had the best drivers already installed. Then, a while later, Windows reported it had 7 more updates - - I let it install them and reboot. Now, there's no Isatap Adaptor listed in Device manager at all. What's up with that? And whatever is an Isatap Adaptor anyway - - and do I need such a thing? Also, the Microsoft tech uninstalled AVG which I had put on until I could get Zone Alarm to install (because I had uninstalled Norton's before I knew that Zone Alarm wouldn't install) - - so deleting the AVG left the system without AV protection all the time we were online - - about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. As soon as the SP1 installation completed, I installed Zone Alarm, updated and scanned. It found a virus, which it deleted (not-a-virus:AdWare.Win32.BetterInternet.hu in the AverMedia folder). I warned the fellow that uninstalling the AV wasn't a good idea. Our DSL connection here is not very secure or stable even though AT&T says everything's fine. Oh, well. I have no idea whether or not the virus did any damage. In the Broadcom Advanced Control Suite (which I've never used before until opening it up a while ago) - - there is a red X in front of [0004] Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller, although there's no X in device manager and device manager reports that the Broadcom Integrated Controller is working properly - - so I'm assuming it is, since I have no idea what that is or what it does. It's listed under Network Adapters in the Device Manager. I got the brand new Dell Inspiron 1721 yesterday to replace a dud Gateway and so far things haven't been going well - - but I do love it - - it's beautiful and sturdy, while the Gateway was really flimsy. This one even has a number keypad! Wow! It's the first laptop I've ever had with one! I know I'm really going to enjoy it after all the bugs are worked out and everything is all set up. I'm installing some other security software this evening. Ken over in Malware removal told me to come here for the Windows issues. Other than the issues I've listed, everything seems to be working as far as I know - - the CD/DVD drive plays discs, speakers are working, and my external hard drive and jump drives are both connected and working. The Webcam is working. The Bluetooth is working. The internet is working, albeit, a bit slowly. One other thing, if I remove the password from my windows account, will that cause the computer to boot up without having to have the password entered every time? In not, how do you set the computer to start without having a password entered? Was kinda afraid to remove the password because of the poor success I've been having with computers lately, lest I could never get into the doggone thing again! Anyway, any suggestions you can give will be greatly appreciated. Blessings, Sharon P.S. Several accessories came with the Inspiron - - most of which I don't know what are. Which forum could help me out with that? I've been using computers for about 22 years, but have never gotten into most of the really fancy stuff. What's an AverMedia Nano Express card for? Not even sure where to plug it in or if I even need to.

Ken, it sounds to me like to many things are going wrong with your new Dell. If it was mine, I'd start over by using the built in recovery to load the computer back to it's factory state, then begin again.

Do one thing at a time and check to make sure everything still works before continuing on to the next step. Start with SP1. Don't do anything else, no cleanup, no new accounts, nothing. Boot the restored computer, do only what is required, then install SP1. Next install any updates on top of SP1. Once that is done, then nuke Norton and install Zone Alarm. As for ZA, make sure you have the latest available installable.

Now is a great time to implement a good backup strategy that will protect you from a hardware or software failure (or self inflicted wounds) in the future.

I'd recommend getting an external USB 2.0 drive enclosure, with fan and at least a 250GB hard drive (IDE). The you can buy Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost or go the free route and use DriveImage XML.

If you go the DIXML route then you will want to also get and build Ultimate Boot CD For Windows (UBCD4WIN),. It is a bootable CD that you create on your computer using your own copy of Windows XP. One of it's included tools is DIXML so in the event of a hard drive failure you just replace the drive, boot the UBCD4WIN CD and restore from your external USB drive.

Keep the backup current. I keep two full backups and replace the oldest. I do this usually once every two months unless I've made some significant changes to my system in which case I do it immediately.

Greetings, and thanks so much for your reply. Thankfully, a different Microsoft agent (the other fellow's supervisor) called me this morning to see how things were going - - and he again accessed the computer and fixed it. I surely don't want to chance having to go through all that again, so hopefully, I won't have to restore it. The only problem I now have is this: this afternoon, IE seems to have gone a little crazy - - every time I try to log in to my gmail account, it goes to "http://" instead of "https://" and won't connect so I have to cursor into the address bar and type the "s" in every time; AND there are several web pages that I can't access, one of them being my whatthetech post (it will go to whatthetech and to the forums page, but not to my post page, ie, here - - I used my husband's laptop to read your post and send this reply, because I couldn't get here on mine). IE will move normally to and around most websites, but not some. Do you know what could be causing this, and how can I fix it? I tried rebooting the system system several times and it didn't help. Thanks again, I really appreciate your input! Sharon Update added the next day: the internet problem was an iGoogle thing, so I just changed my homepage and the problem ceased. However, this morning I got the blue screen and I wasn't even using the computer at the time, so it looks as if I'll have to reformat after all. I have a new Seagate Ceedo USB drive with 250 GB. I'm not familiar with the backup method you described, but after I get restored and going again, I'll need to learn all about it. Very grateful for your advice. Blessings!

Sharon, sorry it didn't work out, but glad you are going to look into setting up a backup plan. Good luck on the restore, let us know how you make out.