Can not turn on wireless card using on board keyboard. How can I override the function keys using an external usb keyboard?

Question

I have a Medion E5211 laptop, with Windows Vista Home Edition. The only way to turn on the wireless card is by pressing Fun+F1 key. There is no external switch. I checked that the keys are not "toggled". The individual Function keys work, for example, F1 key opens up the "Help" page and F3 opens the "search" box etc.

However, none of the Fn+combination keys work. When I press the "Fn" located near the space bar to enable Fn +F1 to turn on the wireless card or Fn+F5 to decrease the brightness of the screen, etc.

I updated all my drivers and reinstalled the Windows Vista. I also installed ubuntu and nothing seems to work. I can obviously turn on the sound and control the brightness using other options in Windows. But I cant turn on the internal wireless card.

Although I have a usb external wireless card. But its not as strong as my internal wireless card.

I bought an external keyboard (usb wirelsss) Logitech K630 and it has function keys allocated to open its own inbuilt functions. For example Fn F1 opens a web browser etc.

I would be grateful for any suggestions or ideas to resolve this problem. Many thanks!!

Solution

Since you are running windows vista, you should be able to follow these instructions to activate your networking card:

1. Start -> Control Panel
2. Network and Internet -> Network and sharing Center -> Manage Network connections
3. Select your network adapter -> select enable

For the official instructions, refer to this link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/enable-or-disable-a-network-adapter

If your adapter still will not activate, then there are deeper issues, such as possibly a hardware failure in the network adapter.

Comments

[Karan]

It's not easy (not sure it's even possible) to reproduce one KB's Fn/special keys using another KB. I'd advise you to get the laptop's KB looked at, since if it was a software issue reinstalling the OS and drivers would have fixed it.