Is it safe to rely on network connection icons at the notification area?

Why are "balloon" messages from icons in my system tray being hidden?

• Whenever I hover over an icon in my system tray, the "balloon" popup message pops UNDER the task bar. So, I'm not able to see most of the message. For example, a disconnected ethernet connection gives the crossed-out icon in the system tray. When you normally hover over the icon, it reads "Local Area Connection A network cable is unplugged". In the case of this computer, I'm only able to read "Local Area Connection", and the second line ("A network cable...") is hidden behind the task bar. I've tried hiding and unhiding the task bar, raising and lowering it, changing the resolution of my display adapter, and pretty much everything else I can think of. I'm running WinXP SP2 on a i815 chipset PC (1GHZ IBM Netvista) with built-in video. Has this happened to anyone else? Any tips on how I can fix this? Thanks!

• Answer:

  I don't know what causes it, but it has happened to me. I just reboot my computer and it fixes itself.