I cannot access my function keys without hitting 'fn' key first. How do I fix that?

[Christophian]

I have an Envy 17-2090 NR and it has been this way since purchase. I tried pressing and holding the fn key to no avail. This is really agravating as I use function keys in my games and other software all the time.

[erico]

Hi,

Welcome to the HP Forum!

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Christophian wrote:

I have an Envy 17-2090 NR and it has been this way since purchase. I tried pressing and holding the fn key to no avail. This is really agravating as I use function keys in my games and other software all the time.

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That is the norm with most laptops and notebooks since the keys that are used for function keys are multipurpose, unlike on desktop PC keyboards.

regards,
erico

[Christophian]

I did not explain myself because that is patently NOT true. I have 4 laptops at this time. In all of them when I press F5, it is F5 not screen brightness or what ever. In order to access the 'blue' functions like screen brightness, keyboard lights, speaker volume etc. I have to press and hold the fn key. However, on my Envy, I have to press and hold the fn key to access F5 rather than just turning on and off the keyboard lights. Now I wish I could reword this thread.

[banhien]

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Christophian wrote:

... I have 4 laptops at this time. In all of them when I press F5, it is F5 not screen brightness or what ever.

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Hi,

You are right. Some laptops HAVE more keys than others on the keyboard. Some laptops have 101 keys, some laptops have ONLY 85 keys and some laptops have number of keys in between.

My 17" laptop even has numeric pad, my 14" and 13.3" laptops do not have and on my 10" netbook the keys are a bit smaller for my fingers. In short, depending on how many keys they can fit onto a keyboard physically, they have to use the combination of keys for a keyboard.

Regards,

[erico]

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Christophian wrote:

I did not explain myself because that is patently NOT true. I have 4 laptops at this time. In all of them when I press F5, it is F5 not screen brightness or what ever. In order to access the 'blue' functions like screen brightness, keyboard lights, speaker volume etc. I have to press and hold the fn key. However, on my Envy, I have to press and hold the fn key to access F5 rather than just turning on and off the keyboard lights. Now I wish I could reword this thread.

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OK. I don't claim to be perfect. I just looked at three of the notebooks currently at home The newest, which is a dv7-4180ea (HP loaner) has F keys is configured like on your Envy. The HP NX6320 and the Toshiba Satellite M305D have the F keys as main and have secondary functions. They are more straightforward with the use of the Fn key. It appears that it depends on what the manufacturers decided to do at the time.

BTW if you look back at my unedited post you will see that I did indeed qualify my statement when I wrote it with the word some. So that is not a patently untrue statement. I try to choose my words carefully.  I will edit this post so you can see what I mean.

best regards,

erico

 ed:

[Christophian]

How do I change it so that when I press F5 it is F5?

[erico]

The map for the function keys is coded in the BIOS. That is why the F keys behave that way. I don't think you can change it unless you play around with the BIOS ROM file. That is a topic that is not discussed here at all. You might find a way to do it at the BIOS websites.

regards,
erico

[Christophian]

We are waaaaay off the track of my original question and I will take full responsibility for not explaining it properly. Here goes. On a regular desk top computer keyboard there are function keys across the top. F1 through F12, and these keys are only F1 through F12. Lots of different types of software use these keys as a way to access functions or as macros etc.

Laptops, while they also have F1 through F12, the keys have dual purposes. Just tapping F4 does what ever F4 is supposed to do within the program you are operating. However if you press and hold the special fn key with blue lettering, you then have access to adjustments for screen brightness, numbers if you have a small key pad, volume control etc.

My HP Envy however has that backwards so that I have to press the special fn key to access F4 or F5 ect. but don't have to press it to access the extra functions like volume.

In the past, this has temporarily happened on one of my other laptops and I would press and hold the special fn key and it would revert to standard functioning which is that when you press F4 you get F4 not screen brightness. I thought that I might have done something similar to the Envy when I first turned it on. However, pressing and holding the special fn key does not change it back to standard functioning. I hope this is a clearer explaination of my problem.

[Christophian]

In the second paragraph I meant 'when you press and hold the special fn key and then F4...'

[Christophian]

and in the last paragraph I should have said that I corrected the problem in the past by pressing and holding the fn key FOR A LONG TIME