Why do I have to hold down the "Fn" key to get normal letter?

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cheers bru, was starting to tear my hair out..!

The Compaq heldesk guy did not know wht he was talking about when he was helping. Wasted my 1.5hrs.....and got to work late as well. The next day i found the solution here and was fixed in sharp 6mins. Leo ur genius.

You da man!! Thanks, I was using an external mouse, and the ms on screen keyboard. I num locked the on screen (entering a lot of #'s) when finished I removed the mouse and couldn't get my laptop working right 'til I found your site. You da man!!!

Thank you for explaining the problem and solution so well. It is exactly what I am looking for.

You are a Genius!!!! The techs at Gateway had me running in circles, spending hours on their phone lines and "chat" support then telling me the only way to fix this (after trying to uninstall/reinstall the keyboard driver) was to find a restore point at a time prior to this "problem" happening and then doin a full system restore!!!!!!!! I spent literally days on this PROBLEM and you gave me (and apparently about half of the user population) the straight forward solution in 30 seconds!!!!!!!! I don't know if you are saint but I'll certainly vote for you on the first ballot for your sainthood!!!! jsw

I am having the same problem. I have a gateway laptop. this week end I used an external keyboard. I can not type with out the numbers on the center of the keyboard on. no letters. I do not have a number lock that I can see. HELP
maureen

I use an external mouse and keyboard.
when I activate numlock, the keyboard works fine and types a number. when I deactivate it types letter, right all is OK. /but now: I hold the function key and then type "j" to get 1 instead the notebook sees it a directional or arrow key. How do I fix this. When I have a external keyboard I press numlock twice and the problem seems corrected. But I do not carry a keyboard along the whole time.

Thanks! I've been trying to figure this problem out for a week.

Worked like a miracle. Thanks a million, mate!

THANKS!!! I'm so glad I found this article. I didn't know what was going on.

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