Frinic So sorry to hear about your continuing problems. It always sounds like "Piss on the Fire George my toast is brown"!! sort of "reassurance" Win7 is OK from others and I am the same, but I do sympathise, I think you are very unlucky.
It sounds like an OS problem what with your drivers not being recognised correctly (it reminds me of a problem I had years ago when my memory wasn't latched in correctly). Not that I think it's that BTW but it wouldn't take a second to check it. The only other hardware fault I can think of giving you problems like this is a duff Hard Disk - however seems unlikely from brand new!!
If you remember I had an OS problem which was an antivirus conflict. My notebook came with an AV preinstalled and instead of uninstalling it straight away I immediately installed the free version of AVG AV. Immediately the machine died and I had to reinstall everything!!
Then I uninstalled the preinstalled AV and all was well.
I wonder also if you have a corrupted install - worse comes to worst you could try and get the company you bought it from to supply a new version of Win7 as they are not over expensive (for Win7 Home).
I think failing all that send it back as life's too short to suffer!!
I sure hope you get some progress and crack this problem mate!
All the best - Morty (keep us updated mate)
PS I can always send Mrs Panzer Commander round to torture a confession out of it!! she always manages to with me!!!!