Devices and Printers won't load - sometimes

[muppie]

My Devices and Printers won't load - most of the time. (When it isn't going to load, I get the green bar that goes on and on and on - and nothing happens.) If it doesn't load, I can't use the printer with my laptop. I have tried restarting the computer. Often, if I do this 2 or 3 times, the devices and printers will load and everything is fine. However, sometimes it won't. I need to fix this. It is extremely frustrating to take up to 30 minutes to start my computer with everything working.

I have read previous posts and have checked the Bluetooth setting. It has been set to automatic. I have tried resetting the Bluetooth setting, changing the setting and then resetting it - nothing is working.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 Intel Core2Duo CPU T250 @ 2.00 GHZ 2.00GHZ
2.00GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit

This is just a recent problem. I have been having this problem for a month or so and am becoming very frustrated. Many thanks, in advance, for any help.

 

[TVeblen]

Hello muppie. Welcome to the forum.

The green bar is Windows looking for and discovering devices in your system. If it is hanging on discovery that strongly indicates a failed/failing device, corrupted driver, or conflicting drivers.

Can you take a look in your Device Manager and see if any devices show a yellow (!) symbol?

 

[muppie]

Reply to Seven Guru

Thanks for your reply - I checked and no yellow symbols.

 

[TVeblen]

Your next step would be to try and isolate which device is causing the problem.

You can do that by disabling one device at a time and testing by opening the Devices & Printers.

But you may want to start with the printer in question.
In Devices & Printers, right click on the printer and "Remove Device".

If the printer does not seem to be the issue, add it back by selecting "Add A Printer" from the top of Devices & Printers window and follow the prompts to reinstall it. (It is not necessary to reinstall the drivers).

 

[muppie]

Reply to Seven Guru

Thanks for the help. I will try that.