Com ports disappeared after foolishing running a "pc tune up" program

My Dell Inspiron 1564 laptop had started running slow a few months ago and websites were taking longer to load, sometimes with a message about scripts running, or waiting for the page to load or exiting it, etc.  I mistakenly decided to run a "Warp Speed PC Tune-up" program I found on the laptop but had never used.  The Dell was my grandson's and the screen started flickering badly after he'd dropped it down some stairs so he bought another one for his school work.  I fixed the screen problem and he didn't want it back so I kept it for my ham radio stuff.  

Anyway, after running that program, things seemed to be no better than before until I wanted to program one of my radios with some additional frequencies last week and the com ports were not accessible by the radio's programming software.  When I checked, the ports no longer showed up in the Device Manager nor under the Show Hidden Devices tab.  I've checked the Registry entries per some web suggestions and ran both the Malware Pro and AVG Anti-virus Free that I have on it but had no success. 

I remembered having CCleaner on a laptop that lost its HDD a few years ago so decided to try the CCleaner Pro Trial version.  It cleaned up a lot of stuff but still no com ports were there.  The USB ports work fine with thumb drives but no longer for the com ports.  I thought any of those programs would find the gremlins causing the issue and quarantine them but they didn't.  A very helpful fellow at the CCleaner website suggested I post my issue here and see if anyone could help out. 

I'm using Windows 7 Home Edition 64-bit with SP1 and really don't care to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 since the main thing I use this laptop for is email and ham radio stuff.  My buddy went to Windows 10 but complains about it quite a lot. he'  He's the one that got me into computers some 37 years ago with a Radio Shack Model 4 before convincing me to get a PC about 30 years ago.  I'm looking for any suggestions as to a program I might use trying to recover the com ports or whatever else I might do to fix this situation.  I'm very appreciative for any help anyone can give me.  

Jim 

Hi, ya no CCleaner.

From a Dos Search from Start CMD (Command Prompt) and Right Click and run as Administrator copy/paste : sfc /scannow and let it run.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

If nothing then reinstall your drivers from your Support Page : https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/product-support/product/inspiron-1564/drivers

When cleaning use from Start Menu MS Disk CleanUp and run it once, then run it again and click on Cleanup System Files.

Can try this if not using it : Super Fetch : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/how-do-i-enable-super-fetch-service-in-windows-7/f1492e7e-5079-e011-9b4b-68b599b31bf5?msgId=75491ac1-9645-416f-9f46-3fa6ecf9e217

And : https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-to-speed-up-windows-7/

& why not see if will update to Win10 from the 1st Button : https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

and

us this to turn off almost everything after you have gone up and down the System Tools and turn stuff off : https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

then

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/open-shell-brings-back-the-glory-days-of-the-windows-start-menu/

(the above is what I use and it is a great OS after turning everything off)  (Or tell your buddy.)

In addition to what Pkshadow posted. Open Device Manager. Click the top most device in the tree, your PC. In the menu select Action > Scan for Hardware Changes. 

Windows 10 should work but according to the Dell site your PC doesn't have Windows 10 drivers. Those would all have to be coming from Microsoft.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ae/product-support/product/inspiron-1564/drivers

Thank each of you for the replies and suggestions.  I downloaded and installed the most current drivers for the laptop and ran the "sfc /scannow" program.  After doing all this, I checked and there were no com ports showing in Device Manager.  I couldn't find "MS Disk CleanUp" on the laptop but did find "Super Fetch" and let it run a couple of times... still had no com ports showing up. 

While testing for the ports one time, I happened to plug in the programming cable for the radio I've wanted to add the frequencies to and com port(10) showed up.  I don't remember that being the way things worked.  It seems that the "Ports (COM & LPT)" that I used previously to program my radios were there regardless of anything being connected.  So, I brought up the additional frequencies to be programmed and clicked "Write".  The loading window came up but the progress bar never moved.  Then a message came up with "Connect TimeOut,Please check comport".  I exited everything and rebooted the laptop then reloaded the programming software, connected the radio,selected the active com port and tried writing to it but had the same results.  

I've tried searching the web for any suggestions but nothing seem to fit my situation.  I've also looked in the bios and there's nothing in there for setting up the com ports.  I also tried my handheld transceiver using the programming software it uses and had similar results so it's not a problem with either radio but the laptop and its com ports.  I also tried uploading a snapshot of the Speccy summary page but it wouldn't let me saying I wasn't allowed to upload the file.  

Jim 

Regarding speccy you would post a link to the output.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/323892/publish-a-snapshot-using-speccy/

Reinstalling your Com port drivers may get them back

https://brady.my.site.com/s/article/Ports-COM-LPT-Not-Showing-in-Device-Manager

Thanks for the link, John.  Here's the Speccy for my Dell Inspiron 1564 in case it may help someone with a solution to my issue.  

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/hEU0VLslmPdbKtMZ2qkRszE

Did you see the link regarding reinstalling your com port drivers?

My apologies for not commenting on that, John.  Yes, I did see it and did go there but it was for Windows 10 and I'm using Windows 7.  However, I did try adding the legacy hardware tab and it didn't change anything.  I also didn't find "Multi-port serial adapters" in my Device Manager which was another suggestion from the web. 

I just know I had no problems with the com ports before running that stupid "tune up" program that I found on the laptop.  Since Google and web pages had been loading slower over the past few months, I thought maybe that program would help.  CCleaner did help a lot but I still get slow loading at times as well as a "Page Unresponsive, Wait for the page to load or Exit".  RKill didn't show anything wrong when I ran it either.  

Jim 

I think you are looking at a clean install. There are Dell Windows 7 isos on archive.org. Did this computer come pre-installed with Windows 7?

https://archive.org/details/dell-windows-7-64bit-sp1-reinstallation-dvd

I would think it did, John, since his folks purchased it new from Best Buy for my grandson when he started college.  I'll take a look at the link for the Dell Windows 7 iso.  Would you know if it comes with it's own key or does it use the one on this one according to it's service tag number?  Anyway, thank you for the link.  

Jim

Never mind about needing a key.  However, I can't tell if I lose drivers, programs, or data by using it.  

Jim

A clean install will inevitably lose a lot of things including those you have listed.

The installer will probably put some generic driver on the machine but you'd be as well to try to download the drivers for the PC from the Dell site before doing the clean install. If you have them on a USB you should be able to go into device manger and install the updated drivers off of the USB by doing it manually.

The installed software is another matter. If you still have it and have the activation key for it then putting it back is simple. If not then there are plenty of free office suites that will work on W7.

As to the data, if you can you need to save that to an external drive. This is possible booting from Linux on a USB stick.

Correct, you would need to back up your data first and then do the install after which you would need to reinstall your programs. Before the clean install you would need to download and copy the chipset and network drivers first to a USB flash drive then install those after the install. The other drivers could be installed later.

The only driver available on your support site that has any chance of bringing back your com port is the intel chipset driver. Install it and see if you get your com ports back.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/inspiron-1564/drivers

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=c158v&oscode=w764&productcode=inspiron-1564

Chrome and Firefox are no longer providing support for Windows 7, why don't you go to windows 10?

pcpunk makes a good point.