please help me to get steam friends working in game please. If nobody has an answer I will reinstall. I can't even remember how long it's been going on, but when I shift + tab nothing happens. I also have my game crash if I tab out, so i have the choice to chat or frag help me!

Right click bottom right Steam icon, Settings > In-Game > see if enable is checked and your key is still the same.

it is and it's enabled

Did you check your power supply?

Yeah, Acid was telling me something the other week about how power supplies on the top have something wrong with them and how Steam communicates with your machine, I'll get him in here to talk about it.

Yeah, so the thing with the power supplies is that when the power supply is on the top for some reason it causes the 12v rail not to run at full power. I have no idea why it does this but it causes issues with memory. What happens is the memory doesn't get full power and causes a visual c++ runtime error in Steam that doesn't report causing the friends to never display. Try taking the power supply out and laying it the other way around on the floor or get a case that has a power supply that can be put on the bottom.

If you take the power supply out lay it upside down. You might want to post a picture once you've done this so I can make sure that it's in the right posistion. Let me know once you've done it.

It's cause by the temperature and humidity differences (as we all now hotter and more humid air moves up). Humidity causes that the power supplies located on the top have their efficiency decreased (depending on the humidity level 3 to 25%). To be more specific the humidity increases the electromagnetic waves interference between power supply's capacitors and inductors.

okay i hate my laptop.....nothing i can do. no wonder reinstalling over and over again just seemed to FAIL. thank you everyone.

This kind of outlines how you can reconfigure a computer stand to turn your computer upside down: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/S ... tm#1135100

That way, the power supply is on the bottom, resulting in the pareto-optimal airflow. Overheated inductors are no joke, since the cheap insulation they use will often fail at high temperatures and cause the coils to bridge.