Yeah think Mats correct, if you get missing manipulators and funny things going on with textures on cirtian viewports is generally points to a graphics card issue.
On a side note when I was getting my laptop I chose very carefully so that I had a compatable card (although its not in Autodesks qualified list as its a Gforce I did quite a bit of digging around to make sure it worked.)
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle