New and odd systray icon

I found this icon in my systray this evening when rebooting after installing Flash updates for both Firefox and IE. After my HDD settled down, it vanished, and it didn't show up in my Customization area, or anywhere else. Device Manager doesn't show any new devices. My PC seems to work fine.

Does anyone know what this indicates, besides something that's temporarily not working?

Does anything similar show up if you?

Right click Start then choose Properties > Taskbar > Notification Area > Customise

Scroll down the list and see if you spot the icon.

Edit: Reading your post I reckon that you've done that already!

To me the icon looks like some sort of display brightness control is switched off warning. But if it's vanished it will be hard to track down exactly what it was.

If all else fails you can try running software to find icons but be warned that scanning an entire hard drive will produce a list of thousands of icons that you'll need to inspect.

Scan for icons:

Sample Results:

You will see the file path if you can spot the icon.

Software needed:

IconsExtract - Extract icon/cursor stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL files - Portable version is best.

Thanks to the both of you.
Greg, I'll run both scans right now.
Callender, I'll run that program right after the malware scans.
I'll report back when I'm done, most likely in the morning (it's nearly 2am for me).
I've also scoured Event Viewer for anything out of the ordinary at that time. No joy.

Malwarebytes scan results:

Code:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
www.malwarebytes.org

Scan Date: 11/2/2014
Scan Time: 1:42:02 AM
Logfile: mbam.txt
Administrator: Yes

Version: 2.00.3.1025
Malware Database: v2014.11.02.02
Rootkit Database: v2014.11.01.02
License: Free
Malware Protection: Disabled
Malicious Website Protection: Disabled
Self-protection: Disabled

OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1
CPU: x86
File System: NTFS
User: user

Scan Type: Custom Scan
Result: Completed
Objects Scanned: 461123
Time Elapsed: 1192 hr, 57 min, 50 sec

Memory: Enabled
Startup: Enabled
Filesystem: Enabled
Archives: Enabled
Rootkits: Enabled
Heuristics: Enabled
PUP: Enabled
PUM: Enabled

Processes: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Modules: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Values: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Folders: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Files: 0
(No malicious items detected)

Physical Sectors: 0
(No malicious items detected)


(end)

SuperAntiSpyware results. Tried it with ScanBoost off, and then on.
Never had this happen before in all my years of using SAS.

Avast! full system scan results.

Wandering one said:

Looks like WI-FI missing driver. Art.

Which is definitely odd, because my machine has only ever been networked with a wired Linksys router.