Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Volume and Wifi notifications are not working?

Sep 7, 2012 12:49AM PDT

When I first bought my computer (Dell Inspiron 1750 w/ Vista Home Premium), I could push the Volume controls, the wifi on-off button, or the screen brightness buttons, and I would see a little notification box pop up on my screen. It would stay on for a few seconds and then disappear again. None of these work now. It is sort of annoying not knowing whether my wifi is on, how bright my screen is, or how loud the volume is. Is there any way to turn these back on without reinstalling the OS?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
I'm going with maybe.
Sep 7, 2012 1:15AM PDT

I've seen updates to the OS that seem to wipe this out. It's a nice thing to see but if the security tightening up has broke it then I would not second guess this.

You can try dell.com, put in your service tag and see if the drivers and apps for your machine have been updated.
Bob

- Collapse -
That did not seem to make a difference.
Sep 7, 2012 12:46PM PDT

I tried that about a week ago. I updated some of the drivers, but most of them seemed to do with things that did not pertain to this (BIOS, Webcam, Dell Support Center, ect.) I thought of the same thing right off. Would re-installing a service pack help with this at all? If not, I might just bite the bullet and purchase Windows 7 for my computer. Thanks for your help!

- Collapse -
Be sure to temper your expectations.
Sep 8, 2012 1:43AM PDT

That usually ends up with the same results. Why?

Because what caused it to break is usually done again. It could be a registry cleaner, your antivirus suite anti-phish feature or other. Today I find it best to ignore things like this because repair is costing more than folk expected.

Imagine if it's the usual protection software. Imagine the time to determine that and the fix.
Bob