Solved External Keyboard Shut Off

[kmbeadweaver]

An elderly friend of mine has an HP Smart Screen PC with a wireless keyboard and mouse (running on a shared USB.) The other day she got a message stating that the keyboard batteries needed replacing which she did. Since she changed the batteries, the PC recognizes that there is a keyboard, but the message that the keyboard is being used is not getting to the PC. The USB and mouse are both working fine. Windows 7 diagnostics do not see a problem with the keyboard. I tried a separate wired USB keyboard which also did not work. This makes me think that there is some "switch" in the software that was turned off. Does anyone know if this is possible? Thanks

 

[NoN]

Welcome to Sevenforums.

At the back of the keyboard when wireless, there's in general a small button so called "Connect" to push when in first use. Might replacing the batteries have reset the keyboard?

 

[kmbeadweaver]

I had tried to reset the wireless device on the keyboard yesterday and it didn't work. I do thank you for your advice though.
I was actually able to fix it this morning. I had read that using fancy batteries can be the problem, so we tried plain old Energizers. The only problem is that before I changed the batteries, I had started a system restore. One of these two actions resolved the problem, but I don't know which one.
Life is good!