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- HP Community
- Notebooks
- Notebook Hardware and Upgrade Questions
- BRIGHTNESS AND VOLUME KEYS ARE NOT WORKING

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12-17-2016 02:52 AM
I am just fade up of this issue two days back my keys for brightness (f2 & f3) were working and for volume (f6,7 & 😎
now they are not working as I have to go to control panel for brightness changes ,
I already update my drivers in Device manager but still my issue isn't resolve
Please help me and guide me what to do??
12-17-2016 04:38 PM
I would like to take a moment to thank you for posting on the HP Support Forums. I came across you post and would like to help. I read that you have an HP Pavillion 17 laptop and the brightness and the volume keys do not work. I appreciate the steps you have performed and have certainly done a good job.
it is necessary to press and hold the function key (fn) while pressing one of the f1 through f12 keys to activate the default functions; such as, increasing or decreasing the brightness of the display, the sound volume, sleep, keyboard lock, etc. On the HP Envy notebooks and other notebooks with advanced BIOS options, the function keys can be configured so that it is not necessary to press and hold the fn key. In fact, you can reverse the process and make it so that you need to hit the "fn" key to adjust screen brightness and so on.
1 - Function Keys f1 through f12
2 - Configurable Function key fn
Disable fn in the BIOS
To disable, or enable, the function key (fn) in the BIOS, do the following steps.
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Press the power button to turn on the computer.
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Press the f10 key to open the BIOS setup window. (On newer computers, you need to hold down the "esc" key. Then you can opt to go into the BIOS settings.)
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Use the right-arrow or left-arrow keys to navigate to the System Configuration option.
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Use the up-arrow or down-arrow keys to navigate to the Action Keys Mode option, and then press the "enter" key to display the Enable / Disable menu.
- Select the desired mode:
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Disabled: You still have the ability to use all those neat shortcut features like ejecting discs, toggling the WiFi and so on with the f1 through f12 keys. Now, in order to use them, you need to hold down the "fn" button to activate the shortcut feature. For exmple, if Disabled , pressing fn + f11 will mute the sound as indicated on the key on this model PC. Alternatively, pressing f11 only will minimize and maximize a web browser if open. (The action keys may vary depending on the model of notebook.)
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Enabled : Requires pressing only f1 through f12 to use the action as indicated on the action keys.
For example, if Enabled , pressing f11 only will mute the sound as indicated on the key on this model PC. Alternatively, pressing fn + f11 will minimize and maximize a web browser if open.
The action keys may vary depending on the model of notebook.
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Press f10 key to save the selection and restart the computer.
The function key (fn) option can be reset at any time by going back into the BIOS. I hope this helps. Keep me posted. Good luck! 🙂
12-18-2016 05:34 AM
With extreme grade sorry , I would mention that your proposed solution didn't help me
what the option i choose for BIOS key (enabled or disabled) option it doesn't work for me , either I press directly f1 to f12 keys or with holding fn and then f1 to f12 keys. it do not increase or derease brightness and volumes etc
Give me some authentic solution that will definately help me out
12-18-2016 11:22 AM
Thanks for your reply. 🙂
- Let's run a hardware test on the keyboard: http://hp.care/2bOrqZQ
- If the keyboard passes the test then please uninstall the keyboard drivers from device manager and then restart the laptop.
- Upon restarting, Windows will reinstall the keyboard drivers by itself.
Hope this helps. Let me know the outcome. Cheers! 🙂
03-20-2017 04:10 AM
SOLVED
I have been through this for some time. My hardware function keys like brightness up/down, keyboard back lit, speaker off, volume up/down, playback controls and flight mode stopped working. However, F1-F12 keys did function whether I pressed the FN key or not. I could not associate the error with any particular update as I was not sure how far back the problem occured.
By the way, this is an Envy 13-d004na, still under warranty.
Before contacting HP support I tried the following:
Windows update,
HP drivers update via HP Support Assistant,
Troubleshoot via HP Support Assistant,
Enabled/disabled the Action Key Mode in the BIOS,
Uninstalled keyboard driver from Device Manager and restarted,
Made a system restore to the earliest available restore point some 3 weeks ago.
None of the above solved the problem. Even the BIOS setting made no difference.
Contacting HP support, they suggested to try the same which I have already done, and also, they remotely installed one update: sp79048.
As the update did not make any difference, HP's suggestion was to do a factory restore to "isolate" the problem whether it is hardware related or not. For me this cannot be a hardware issue as the keys are properly working, just not delivering the Action mode. For a HP assistant it is easy to say to restore everything, but it is a painful exercise for the user, hence I don't consider it as an engineered solution.
What disturbed me was that the Action Mode key setting in the BIOS did not make any difference. Therefore, before doing a factory reset, as a last attempt I decided to flush the BIOS and to update it to F.36 version. And here it comes, this exercise solved the issue and everything was back to normal!
So I suspect that apperently one of the latest W10 updates or HP driver updates was not compatible with the previous F.35 BIOS version.
I cannot guarantee that this is a solution for all, but at least worked for me.