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The keyboard on my Acer Aspire does not work, about ten keys including the Fn keys do not work. I am now using a wireless Microsoft keyboard which works fine except it has no Fn key. I have bought a S-Video cable to connect to my TV for but I can not use Fn with F5 to get the TV screen on. What do I need to press on this Microsoft keyboard? Please help!

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  • Buy a new keyboard any way and plug it in via USB! This would resolve the broken keys and this issue!
    – Dave
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 10:32
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    @DaveRook: He states he is already using an external keyboard, so I'm not sure how that would help.
    – oKtosiTe
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 10:57
  • We might be able to help you better if we knew specifically which Acer Aspire and which Microsoft keyboard you're using. That way we'd know more about your graphics adapter, for example.
    – oKtosiTe
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 10:59
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    I wonder if AutoHotKey can solve this!
    – Dave
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 11:04
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    I believe Fn keys are driver dependent. If the driver of the keyboard and the driver of the graphics adapter don't interact with each other, this will not have any useful effect. The Fn key on an external keyboard can generally not perform the calls of the laptop keyboard because the Fn keys are hardware specific; they are not regular keyboard keys.
    – oKtosiTe
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 11:06

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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If you are using Windows 7 or 8, you can press Win + P to switch the second monitor output.

If these keys on your keyboard, unfortunately, don't work either, right-click on the Desktop, select "Adjust screen resolution", then press "Connect to projector" link near the bottom to do the same thing.

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  • @Dave Does Windows Vista have this? I only discovered this shortcut since Windows 7.
    – Alvin Wong
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 10:34
  • As far as I know, this feature was new to Windows 7.
    – Indrek
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 10:58
  • tried the windows button with p nothing happens
    – Mark
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 16:00
  • @Mark Then what's your operating system? Had you tried my other advice also?
    – Alvin Wong
    Commented Mar 12, 2013 at 5:37
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I believe most Fn keys are driver dependent. If the driver of the keyboard and the driver of the graphics adapter don't interact with each other, this will not have any useful effect. The Fn key on an external keyboard can generally not perform the calls of the laptop keyboard because the Fn keys are hardware specific; they are not regular keyboard keys and can't be remapped.
More information on the workings of Fn keys in this Wikipedia article.

Instead, my recommendation is to check the graphics adapter driver's settings for a hot key section. Most driver packages have one.

There you should be able to set a key combination manually. It's also possible a combination is already set by default.

Here is an example of such a section from my extremely mediocre onboard Intel card: enter image description here

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If you have Windows Vista, 7 or 8 you can press Win+P then choose which screen(s) to use.

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