topic FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly?? in PCs & Accessories

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:24:46 GMT

I've had this laptop for over 4 years but last year it broke with it displaying blank screen and flashing cursor and with me trhinking the motherboard had blown has been gathering dust in a cupboard.

Though last night for some strange reason it dawned on me it could be the harddrive so i swapped it over with another one i had and hey presto its working again

The one problem im getting though is to type ive got to permenantly have the fn button depressed to type 'on that half of the screen'???

Just wondering if there is a solution... let me stress that the num lock key doesnt change anything and whethher its on or off makes no difference.

just to be clear when i press, for example, the letter p i get the * symbol and thats with num lock on and off and the only way for it to say p is if i have the fn key constantly pressed down, which makes typing annoying.

really hope there is a solution, thanks for reading

leroy x

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:21:54 GMT

Hi Leroy,

welcome to Questions & Answers..:smileyhappy:

When you press the Num Lk key does the corresponding Number lock light switch on & off..:smileyconfused:

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:43:11 GMT

Yes it does Thalamus.

To be more precise when i press fn and num lock the the padlock with the up and down arrow inside lights up and when i press alt and num lock the padlock with 1 inside lights up.

sadly neither of these makes any difference to my problem...

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:46:42 GMT

im guessing the padlock symbol with the up and down arrow is screen lock and the padlock symbol with the 1 inside is number lock?????

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:55:38 GMT

very very strange with both lights off when i press p [ / and ; i get

* instead of p

- instead of ;

+ instead of /

and when i press [ it acts as the enter key

but the other fn keys like o i u j k l m dont work at all

actually except u whch acts as a backspace

obv when i press alt and num lock and the symbol lights up they act 'normally' and spell the symbols they should as dictated by what it says in orange.

and then through all this pressing fn and typing will spell out everything as it should

fyi all keys with no orange lettering work absolutely fine whether fn ispressed or not......

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:02:11 GMT

when i press fn and num lock the the padlock with the up and down arrow 
 inside lights up and when i press alt and num lock the padlock with 1  
inside lights up.

Does the Num Lock light ever switch off..:smileyconfused:

im guessing the padlock symbol with the up and down arrow is screen lock and the padlock symbol with the 1 inside is number lock?????

Spot on, yes that would be correct..:smileyhappy:

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:05:42 GMT

yes it switches on and off at will whenever i press i press alt and fn together.

and thanks for your continued help

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:32:53 GMT

No lol i literally winged it straight in didnt format it or anything.... seemed to work fine though apart from this problem....

d'you think this might be whats making it go wrong???

i could do a fresh install but its a lot of hassle for it not to solve anything....

i was kinda hoping there'd be some special file that would just remap the keyboard or something.... kinda wishful thinking i know lol...

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:35:10 GMT

When you installed the new hard drive did you install the original Microsoft operating system using the recovery disc's.?

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:44:25 GMT

No lol i literally winged it straight in didnt format it or anything.... seemed to work fine though apart from this problem....

That's not a good thing, when windows was installed on that HDD it would have used the specs of the PC that the HDD was sitting in at the time, could cause all sorts of conflicts along the way..

Have you tried going into device manager & removing the keyboard(s) then rebooting your Vaio.?

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

elwhy85 — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:18:52 GMT

Thanks very much for your help THALAMUS though you're probably right I'm gonna install a fresh windows installation firstly then go from there, as i dont want to get settled into it tehn have a another set of problems down the line.

So i'll do that first then install all the vaio firmware then if that doesnt fix the keyboard i'll report back on here.

Wish me luck!!

This vaiio was vista when i brought i'm assuming windows 7 will be fine on it though???

All the best,

leroy

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:28:18 GMT

Ok good luck..:smileygrin:

Installing Windows 7 should be fine, should you need them here is a link to download the Preinstalled Drivers and Utilities for your FW11E Vaio - Downloads & Preinstalled Drivers and Utilities

If you can't find a Windows 7 driver then use the Vista ones..:smileywink:

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:26:37 GMT

Another option..

If the pre-installed applications are important to you then you could use the recovery discs to recovery your Vaio back to factory settings, once completed you could then upgrade to Windows 7.

Another benefit of doing this is that you could quickly check if doing a recovery does indeed resolve the Fn key problem..:smileywink:

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

danhague — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:44:51 GMT

Does any think that this could also be a hardware(keyboard) issue. I mean, maybe it looks good when look at it but there might be something wrong inside.

FW11E Fn Key On Permenantly??

Thalamus. — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:29:36 GMT

danhague wrote:

Does any think that this could also be a hardware(keyboard) issue. I mean, maybe it looks good when look at it but there might be something wrong inside.

Hi danhague,

it could well be a hardware problem..

However as the HDD that was placed in the Vaio already had Windows & respective drivers from another PC I would suspect a software problem would more likely be the cause at this time..:smileywink:

Using the recovery disc's & restoring the vaio back to 'factory'setttings would be the simplest way of identifying if the problem is either hardware or software..