Hi I'm Kevin! And I'm Randy!
And we work for the Customer Care Web Support Team.
We get a lot of questions from customers asking
us how to fix problems with their PCs.
And so today we're here to talk about wireless keyboards and mice
and how to fix problems with them as well as how they work.
Yeah, I know I've had times when I've been online gaming
and I just want to chuck that mouse right out of the window!
So this is a good topic!
That's good! So let's just start with the
very basic like – my mouse – it doesn't work!
It doesn't work?
Okay, so how does it not work?
Is it the mouse and keyboard what's going on here?
Well the keyboard, I don't know, that's not really so much my problem,
it's the mouse. You see when I move it here it's not doing anything.
Okay, well it's probably your batteries but it
could be other things as well. And there are some things
that you'd want to try before you replace them. So let's get to it.
Alright, so what's the first thing I would do?
Well, since your mouse isn't working the first thing
I would do is go ahead and check the underside.
Some mice just have a little on/off switch. So yours does,
so that says that it's an optical mouse. Go ahead – even
if it says it's on, go ahead and toggle it.
This one was off.
See the light come on there? That tells you it was off.
So go ahead and give it a try.
OK. Still nothing.
Light's on but no one's home. Okay, so what do you think you do next?
I don't know – you tell me.
Well what I would do, I would just go ahead and restart the PC.
Maybe things are just locked up.
Well, how do I do that? I can't press “Start”.
Right, your mouse isn't working so you're going to have to press
the Power button on the front of the PC.
OK, so I'm shutting it down.
Yes, just press it once and then if it doesn't shut down
like it's doing now, go ahead and press and hold the Power
button for 5 seconds or until it turns off.
OK, well your PC's up now.
Still not working.
Right, well let's go ahead and check the batteries.
Go ahead and replace them.
OK, so I'm just replacing them. To change these,
you have to turn it over and there's a little lip in here
that you want to put your fingernail in and just pop it open.
Then there's this little tab you can pull that gets
the batteries out pretty easily.
There should be a diagram.
Yeah you'll notice in here that there's a little
diagram that shows the batteries, a plus or minus sign,
and you want to make sure get those in there correctly.
I know I have put them in backwards before and thought that
it was the mouse but it was really me.
When I'm changing batteries in my mouse, I like to also
do it in the keyboard just so I know that
they're all fresh and all the same.
Yeah, that's a good idea. While you're doing that,
I'm going to go ahead and say a few things about batteries.
You definitely want to use store-bought batteries,
fresh alkaline batteries from the same package if at all possible,
that'll give you the most life.
You want to shy away from the rechargeable batteries
just because you won't get as much charge time or use time from those.
Also do not mix and match your batteries. Don't take
one that has already been used for a couple of weeks and put
a new one in there because you've only got one battery lying around,
that also will decrease the battery life and your use.
So alright, it looks like we're back on. It's moving now,
I can see it on here but I don't know if it's working…
Yeah it doesn't look like it's tracking too well.
It's sticking with what I'm moving to.
Things in the environment can cause the mouse not to track very well,
like fluorescent lights, cell phones, even speakers,
but typically that's intermittent. That'll tend to knock
it out but it will still work decently.
It looks like something else is going on here. It might be dirty underneath,
like a little hair or something around the light sensor area,
but you don't really have a mouse pad or anything and your surface,
if it's glossy, can cause it to not track well.
You want a nice flat mat.
So let's get you a little pad and see if that helps. Try that.
Oh that's alright!
Smooth as silk!
It feels very good, it's moving exactly as I expect.
Yeah it's looking better.
Alright. So, that's the mouse. But what if it's the keyboard?
You know, sometime you're typing and it skips letters
or there's a lag between what you are doing?
Keyboard lag. Typically, that is caused by software.
Right so, if your software is under heavy load, e.g.
if Windows has got a virus scan going on in the background,
so you've got a lot of things going
on while you are trying to do something else,
then the system is just busy, it doesn't have the time
to present what you are typing onto the screen
because it's off busy doing other things.
So the best thing you can do there is
to uninstall software that you don't use anymore,
prevent software from loading with Windows, close
everything down before you work on your typing.
So what you are trying to say is if you have a
lot of things going on and you notice it's kind of lagging,
maybe shut a few applications down.
Exactly.
Or notice if it's happening just in one application
versus maybe another one.
It can also be caused by the distance to the receiver.
Also if your keyboard isn't working but your mouse is still skipping,
another thing that you probably want to do is resynchronise your devices,
i.e. synchronise the mouse and keyboard to the receiver.
All this talk about synchronising is getting kind of technical.
Maybe we need somebody to come in and try and help explain some of
this technical stuff. Somebody like Bill.
Bill's great at this kind of thing.
Hey, I'm Bill. So what are you guys doing here,
I heard you talking about synchronisation?
Right, trying to understand,
Randy was talking about the fact that to fix mouse and keyboard problems,
sometimes you have to synchronise them up again or
something and there's something about a receiver
so if you can explain what all that is.
You bet. So when you talk about synchronisation
with the keyboard, mouse and the receiver,
you basically have three devices that need to talk to each other.
During a startup of the PC, the receiver actually tells BIOS
that it's there and the keyboard is then active, so you can press
a key and go onto BIOS, and that's all that's required to get in there.
So there's a receiver, and there's a BIOS thing.
What is this receiver thing?
Randy, why don't you pull the receiver off
the back there and we'll show you.
So this is what the receiver looks like and it
looks like a USB thumb drive and it's very similar to that.
It has a Connect button – there are some that don't – but this one does.
What this does is this actually tells the computer,
or the BIOS (Basic Input Output Information) system, what it actually is.
So there is actually circuitry on the dongle here,
the receiver, that tells it what it is.
OK, so the BIOS then is on the PC and then it's telling
it what's coming into the PC and what's going out,
you said Basic Input Output.
Yes all that does is it helps start the computer
and tell the computer what's on there.
OK, and that can work even if it doesn't in Windows,
so I'm in Windows and you can still use the keyboard?
You can still use the keyboard outside of Windows
and that's where the USB and the BIOS work together.
Once you get into Windows, then you have other things,
you have the driver, you have the registry, you have software
or applications that have to work together with the keyboard and mouse.
One more thing you said that I didn't understand there: registry.
So the registry is basically just a database.
And the database has information about the receiver, about the mouse,
and about the keyboard to tell it what they can actually
do and how they actually interact with the operating system.
OK, so it's telling the computer, this is what I know about
these things here and this is how they can be used in Windows.
Exactly.
So, regarding synchronisation, there are a couple of
different kinds of receivers we have like I said before.
This one actually has the Connect button on it and when
you push that button – it's hard to push so you have
to use a fingernail – it turns blue.
And when it turns blue that means it is looking for a signal.
When it's looking for a signal,
then you can use the Connect button on the back
of the keyboard or mouse. On the keyboard,
you'll notice there is a Connect
button there and once the receiver is flashing,
then you push the Connect button, and the Connect button sends a signal,
similar to when you are trying to synchronise
your Bluetooth headset with your cell phone.
So this one's saying “Hey I'm looking for things,
who wants to come hang out with me?” And this one now
you're pushing this in and it says “Yes, I do!”
Exactly. And once that keyboard is recognised by the receiver,
you can do the same exact process for the mouse.
On the back of the mouse, you have the Connect button as well.
OK, again, same thing: this thing's back here telling
the computer that it has these items, these guys come in and
say “Hey, I know you” and now the computer…
That's how it works!
So that's what “synching” is? Making them all work together? Yes.
Couple of tips for synching: if it's not
synchronised and you need to synchronise it,
you might want to try a USB port on the front of your PC,
which this one has. We could use the front of
it and that way we can see visually when the synchronising starts.
Alright let's try that, I'd like to see it.
And when you plug in, you have to wait a few minutes
to make sure the USB device is actually recognised by the system.
You'll see some information in what we call the Sys Tray,
in the little area down by your clock and your calendar.
So now this one just says your device is ready to use,
so we know that it recognises it.
What you want to do is you want to press and hold the
Connect button for about 5 seconds,
5 to 10 seconds, depending on how fast you count.
OK. Right, 1-2-3-4-5.
And there it is flashing!
There it goes, it's blinking!
Now what the receiver is doing is it's waiting for a signal
to be received and that receiving signal comes
from either your keyboard or your mouse.
So what we would do now is we're going to turn the
keyboard over and you're going to push and hold that
Connect button until that blue light starts flashing on the Connect.
Now to do that, you need about 60 seconds in total for
synchronisation, that's what the receiver is looking for.
Starting now?
Yes.
How long do I hold this?
About 5 to 10 seconds.
OK. 1-2-3-4-5. It's stopped flashing.
So now your keyboard is synchronised with that receiver.
You follow that exact same process for the mouse.
Now remember, the exact same process means we have
to push the Connect button first.
Oh that's right.
Because the receiver is no longer looking for a signal,
we sent it the signal and now it sees it.
So it needs a second time. OK 1-2-3-4-5.
There you go, there it's flashing.
So now we do the same thing over on this side.
There's that Connect button.
Push and hold that: 1-2-3-4-5.
And it has stopped flashing. So now,
whenever you move the mouse or push a key,
you'll see the light turn on as well,
and that means that it's receiving a signal.
Look at it now, it's so smart. It works!
Great!
Alright so let's summarise because we talked about a lot of things here.
So the mouse and the keyboard,
they have to talk to this thing which is then talking
to the computer and the computer is telling it
how to show up in Windows and move around on here.
That's correct.
I think I get that, that's the synching part
you're talking about, everything working together.
With synchronisation there's just one other
thing you might want to keep in mind and that's that the dongle,
the receiver, may not have a Connect button on it.
The Touchsmart there doesn't have a Connect button
on the receiver because it's harder to get to.
Randy's turning it around for us so we can see
how you get to the receiver, possibly to reset it,
to recede it into that spot or to move it to a different USB spot.
OK so it's up inside here.
Yes. Use your fingernail to pull it out.
And it looks really similar.
So it does, there's the little place where I hooked
my fingernail into and it came right out.
And you'll notice there is no Connect button. But
what you can do is you can plug that into one of the side USB
ports just to make sure that it is synchronising.
Especially when you are troubleshooting something,
you want to eliminate any variables in the equation.
If it doesn't work in one port,
try it in another and see if it was something that made it…
Right OK, I get that. I wonder if I can actually
get it back in there. Oh that wasn't so hard.
That's great, do you have any other questions?
No I think that's it. I get it, now they are all talking
together and that's what makes them run, but it's a lot
that goes on, I can see why they have problems.
They can.
Well, thanks a lot. OK, see you around.
So, Randy.
That Bill is a smooth guy.
He is, I like that Bill, he sure helps a lot.
Well did he teach you everything you needed to know, are you fixed?
Well, I think I understand better how this
all works and where problems can be and we did get it going,
but you know, I'm wondering what if we did that
and it still didn't work? I mean I hate to say
that it wouldn't work at this point, but what if it didn't?
What if the hardware's bad, how do I know that?
Well if it's the hardware, you can take the receiver,
the keyboard, and the mouse to another PC, e.g.
if you have another notebook or something or a friend's,
take it over there, plug it in and see if it works.
If it works, great, then you know at least the hardware's good.
If it doesn't work on your friend's PC,
then you're looking at maybe the hardware's bad for some reason,
maybe it got damaged or something.
But if it does work, bring it back to your PC, try it again,
if it still doesn't work on your original PC then you
are probably looking at a Microsoft system restore to go back,
because remember Bill talked to you about the registry?
Right, right.
If it's misenumerated in the registry,
if things got messed up and that database is wrong,
then the only way to really get back from that is
a System Restore or an HP System Recovery.
OK, so System Restore I mean I kind of understand these
things but just real quick, where would you find System Restore,
if you wanted to try rolling just Windows back
before you went the whole length of recovery?
OK, so System Restore you don't have to save your files
or anything like that. And it's available through the Windows Start menu.
You just click Start, All Programs, Accessories
then go to a folder called System Tools, and it's inside there.
All you do is you click System Restore, it comes up, you say Next,
select a date when you know it was working properly
and then click Next and follow the prompts.
That will take your whole system back to a time
when it was working properly. A lot of times it doesn't work.
So if you can't do it and you get a message that says
that you can't perform a system restore then you are
pretty much left with an HP System Recovery.
Right, so if it doesn't work you have to take a more
drastic step and start it all over with a recovery.
Make sure you save all your files.
You don't want to blow away all of your hard work.
A system recovery is a pretty big thing. It's going to
wipe out everything on your hard drive and put it right
back to how it was when you first bought it and turned it on.
So save any personal files or anything before you do this step.
This is one of those sure-fire ways to,
if it's something software-related, this will take care of it.
HP has placed their Recovery program in a couple of different spots.
The way I get to it is I click the Start button, I go to All Programs,
and for this particular PC it is on the main menu,
it says Recovery Manager.
A lot of times you'll also find it in this folder here
called PC Help and Tools. You just select Recovery
Manager and click System Recovery and follow the prompts.
OK, alright, so we've now proved if the hardware works or it doesn't,
we've done all we can with the software so it either works or it doesn't.
At this point, I don't know that there is much more that you can do.
That's all I've got. I hope this helped you.
See you round like a doughnut!