Solved Desktop icons keep disappearing

Metalbutty

New Member
Messages
6
Hi everyone, I recently upgraded from XP to Windows 8 and subsequently to 8.1 I'm having persistent problem with desktop icons disappearing. This happens when our PC has been on for around 10 minutes, regardless of whether the PC is active or not.
The second problem is the icons on the taskbar will not work correctly - only a very small window opens above each icon and it will NOT maximise. The only way to solve this I've found is to restart the PC but it's becoming more and more frequent and is driving me nuts!! :cry:

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
The first thing I would try is scanning for malware using MBAM

The free version is just fine for scanning.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
I would run a diagnostic on your video hardware. If it was bad Windows settings then almost always it would happen immediately. Often problems that kick in once the machine is running for a shrt amount of time are hardware related. The problems start when the component gets warm/hot.

Also it's possible that you could be running old video drivers. The manufacturer of the video chips/card should have a web page where you can download the latest drivers. Usually install only requires double clicking the downloaded file once the download completes.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
I'm not entirely sure how to do that, but I ran a check via Control Panel and no issues were detected. Is there any other software/program that you could suggest to use in order to check this?

Thanks for your help so far, much appreciated.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
If you right click Computer and click Properties, it may say what the video hw is. If not you can run Speccy to find out. Usually the manufacturer has a diagnostic program for that component, that you can download. In the meantime if you hit Winkey-x, then m, it opens Device Manager. If you click Display Adapters it might show a yellow '!' next to it if Windows has detected a conflict.

So first I'd check Device Manager, if nothing there try to download the manufacturer's diagnostic tool. Post back on your progress.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
Okay, done that (I think). Under 'display adapters' it shows Radeon HD 8607D, but there are no exclamation marks next to it and when I did a driver software check it reported that it was up to date.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
I would not go through Windows. It is better to go to the manufacturer's support page and check the driver manually.

If it is the latest you could still try a couple of things. One is boot to safe mode and remove the device in device manager, then reboot to normal mode. Often reinstall fixes strange behavior. If no joy then you could try the previous release of the driver from the maker's support page if it is for the same model GPU.

If none of that has any effect then either it's a hw issue with the card or the video card is not the cause. In any case those 2 things are easy to try. When you reboot to normal mode the system will reinstall the driver. It''s a standard windows support trick that works quite often.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
I think I may have found what the problem was. I'm running Windows 8.1 on a HP Pavilion 500-119ea desktop with a IPS LED monitor. The default power saving setting for the monitor was to go into sleep mode after 15 minutes and it was at this point that the problems with the desktop would start.
I adjusted the sleep settings for the monitor to 'never' and, so far, no problems. I'll keep you posted on this, as it could be useful to others.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Sounds like you got it. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
Yep, it's working fine now thankfully!! :thumbsup:

What a strange thing to happen though. Thanks for your help with this.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Yep, it's working fine now thankfully!! :thumbsup:

What a strange thing to happen though. Thanks for your help with this.

I didn't even think of screen saver/power saver as I usually end up disabling them all and running High Performance profile. I should have thought to ask about it though. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
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