Lately programs that start on start up haven't been starting, like the webcam driver, even though the webcam itself stopped working a while ago, but other programs too, like peoplepc and Windows Defender. I can't start Windows Defender when I try it says the service is stopped and when I start the service it starts and then stops right away. Not to mention the other day I had a Blue Screen stop error out of the blue. What's going on with my lappie? Virus? Hardware faults? Bit rot? Cookies if you can help. Sometimes restarting the computer helps but it hasn't been lately.

Nope haven't reinstalled. Can't really I mean I might have the Recovery Disc or something but I don't think that is called for yet. Just wondered if this behaviour is typical of something in particular.

You're running XP aren't you? My experience with XP was that it needed to be reinstalled regularly.

I used to use AVG, but it's been awhile.

And IIRC, a lot of startup stuff was handled by msconfig (exe?).

turns out most AV programs suck a lot more than they used to. MS pretty much neglected MSE to the point it went from #1 to #10 or something. And the rest of the programs haven't been able to keep up with the more complex behaviours of malware these days. I think the detection rate of all of them is under 80%. It's still better to have one, but none are GREAT. Some are better than others, but not by a lot (except mcafee/norton those suck donkey balls in every category you care to look at).

Sounds like you're not the victim of a conspiracy after all, so maybe you just need to troubleshoot each problem individually?

It may be the camera driver is bad or the graphics driver but I haven't updated and can't because there aren't any more up to date drivers than what I have and I haven't messed with them in a long while. It's like bit rot or gremlins or something.

Other problems include Wireless Networking not working with a USB Ubuntu installation. And wireless breaking itself until a restart sometimes. I think that's just bad software design though.

Give it to me!

Also, the power cord stops giving power sometimes depending on the way the plug is currently fitting the adapter. So then it runs on battery til it dies which is only like 1hr30 two hours max. I have an alternate power cord but don't use it because it is shorter.

Open Event Viewer (WinKey+R -> "eventvwr" or Start->Administrative Tools->Event Viewer), go through the logs and look for warnings and errors. The Details tab on individual Warning and Error items may reveal further information on what's actually wrong which will allow googling for solutions.

Try "Action->Create Custom View" while the root element of the tree on the left is selected. The dialog is self-explaining.

Try seeing if marvell has a newer driver. Or at the very least, disable the device, remove it from device manager, and let windows reinstall the driver? Kinda a hack, but sometimes it helps if the hw is acting up.

I personally wouldn't be so paranoid. Also windows keeps a copy of drivers in its driver cache. so if you just tell the device manager to uninstall the device, it wont remove the actual driver. Using the driver's uninstall feature might actually remove it from the cache, not sure.