HP laptop F1-12 keys inverted with Fn

I recently bought an HP laptop. I'm pleased with it, save for one thing.

All the F1-12 keys are inverted. I mean the following:

All the F-keys have a symbol on it. Normally you would press Fn + your to use it. On this laptop, it's reversed. The symbol is what you get when you press the button normally and you have to press Fn + F-key to get the usual action.

So, if I want to refresh a webpage, instead of just F5, I have to do Fn + F5

I want to change this to regular behavior. Anybody know how I can do this?

Running Win7 Home premium, 64-bit.

2

8 Answers

Apparently this can be adjusted in your notebook's BIOS.

From HP's "Disable The Fn + Function Key Combination on Certain Models":

On most HP and Compaq notebook PCs, 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.

Complete info (with pictures) is available from HP (see link).

1

I can use Shift+Fn (actually Fn + Shift, button-down-order seems to matter here) on my Elitebook to invert/swap Fn and F-Keys (aka "lock Fn"). The keyboard indicates the current mode with a little light on the Fn key and also shows the switching option printed on the Shift-Key, see screenshots attached. Sometimes it's worth checking the printings on the keyboards before using google thought - learned it the hard way ^^

6

Usually, you can boot into BIOS at startup with F10, and look for the system configuration option. Look for "action keys mode," or something similar, and toggle as desired.

More detailed instructions if needed:

1

This solution might work

Press FN and then CAPS once, the FN keys will be swapped.

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I encountered this same problem but since I am stuck with windows 10, I was still somewhat confused after reading the answers. The steps I had to take were:

1. Turn off the computer
2. Press power on your computer and immediately and repeatedly press "esc" to get to the start-up menu
3. Press F10 to go to the “BIOS Setup”
4. Once in the “BIOS Setup” press the arrow keys to "System Configurations"
5. Scroll Down to “Action Keys Mode”
6. Disable “Action Keys Modes”

That should do it.

In short – Turn off and then turn on your computer > Press Esc to get to Set-up Menu > BIOS Set-up > System Configurations > Action Keys Mode > Disable

Hope this helps!

1

After searching my Probook BIOS to no avail, it was Ctrl+Fn that worked for me.

1

The method that worked for me on a new HP laptop in was pressing the fn key twice.

Update: As a commenter pointed out below, this seems to only work for the next keypress.

1

As @worldsayshi said in the comments, it's worth it highlighting.

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Using Fn + Esc worked like a charm in my case with a Dell.

Tip: Find in the keys of your keyboard if there's an imprinted symbol of something related to Fn (in my case it had over the Esc an Fn inside a lock.

Dell Inspiron's: