My daughter is having problems with her wireless keyboard and has emailed me from the library computer asking for help.
She emailed and said she’d call tonight to see if I have found any suggestions and only left me a bit of information. It’ll be easier if I just copy what she wrote to me, because I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a wireless keyboard, being the clueless uncool mom that I am.
" I have a really espensive, nice wireless gaming keyboard and it isnt working since last night. We changed the battaries but it didn’t help. We’ve tried all the connection buttons…nothing. The weird thing is that the media keys all work so I know the keyboard isn’t dead, but every other part won’t work.
I’m thinking it might have something to do with my drive cleanup I did last night. My C drive had only 145mb left so I let it clean the computer and now I have something like 1.3GB… But ever since then, I can’t get my keyboard to work. Another weird piece of trivia: in the control panel >> keyboards, my keyboard hardware doesnt have a keyboard listed in the drives.
I’m really confused (especially since the media keys, vol control, and user button still work).
Maybe you can ask your friends about it?"
So friends, what do you think? Just time for a new keyboard? It probably isn’t more than a year old, maybe two, and it really doesn’t sound like a keyboard issue so much as a computer issue.
Sounds like a possible driver issue. She should either run the installation disk that came with the keyboard, or if that is no longer available, she should visit the manufacturer’s website and download the latest driver package. Before doing that, she may want to go to the Device Manager (Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager button) and remove the current keyboard installation, to avoid any potential device conflicts. In fact, doing that and then rebooting may allow XP to properly identify the keyboard and automatically reinstall the correct driver all on its own.
Wow, I have the same keyboard (well probably not the same exact model, but the same brand name and it looks pretty similar), and I think I’ve got the same problem. I haven’t tried the media buttons, but the ordinary keys stopped working. Replacing the batteries didn’t help, nor did the connection buttons (although the LED on the receiver did indicate that it could detect the keyboard).
I didn’t really put a lot of effort into fixing it, since I have a wired keyboard that I like better anyway. But I’ll tell you what: as soon as I get home from work in a couple of hours, I’ll fix it and tell you how I did it (yep, I have a ridiculous amount of faith in my own abilities). Unless your daughter fixes hers first, in which case please let me know what she did!
But yeah, Q.E.D.'s suggestions sound reasonable, and that’s where I’ll probably start.
Crap, my one magically started working again. Sorry to get your hopes up.
Here’s what I did: I tried the ordinary keys to make sure they were still broken. Then I press the ‘Word’ button, which successfully brought up MS Word. Then I tried the ordinary keys again. There was sorcery afoot, because they started working, both within and without Word.
I don’t know, maybe invoking Word with that button actually disenflagrigacombaldriroonified the drivers and got them working again. But I still think that Satanic intervention is a more likely explanation.
Thank you so much! Problem resolved!
I think her concern was that she lost the disk that came with it. I’m assuming she went to the website after your suggestion (or it could have been Satanic intervention, knowing my wacky child!). I just got a very perky email from her letting me know she was back up and running.