I have a Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop, and I'm having volume issues. The speakers and volume do work and work great, but what doesn't work is the "Fn" (function) button for Volume Up, Volume Down, and Mute on the Keyboard. This just stopped working today. PLUS!! I have also lost the volume icon on my system tray. Not sure if this is connected to the buttons not working or it was a coincidence.
Again, I have control of my sound from other means (Sounds and Audio Devices, Windows Media Player, VLC, and etc.), I just lost the keyboard functions and the Tray icon for volume. The tray icon is not "Hiding", I've restarted the laptop a couple times, all drivers are working. I have not uninstalled the drivers yet and reinstalled. BIOS has no options for volume at all for the keyboard.
Latest things I was doing on the laptop when this occurred (no order):
Installed Debut Video Capture Software
Installed Skype
Defragged and Scan Checked Local Drive
Used CCleaner 2.28
Uninstalled Avira Anti-Virus 9.0
Uninstalled Vista Transformation 8.0
Installed LClock
Upgraded VLC from 1.0.3 to 1.0.5
Uninstalled Microsoft Office 2010 Beta
Starbug1S1- This may have been something you have already checked but I will suggest anyways. You said you had control of your sound from other means - Sounds and Audio Devices properties was one- did you notice a check box that reads Place volume icon on the task bar. This may remedy part of your problem if you put a check in the box. Hopefully this helps. Thanks.
Starbug1S1 - Ok, thought I would mention it. I also had a thought about a registry entry that would be in the control set for the sound driver. Wouldn't there be an entry there for the system tray controls? Maybe under the parameters of your sound driver in local machine? Just a thought. Hope that helps
Starbu1S1 - 2 other ideas as I reread all you wrote in your post. You have reinstalled audio drivers, but what about dell keyboard drivers? Might restore default functionality. I also thought about looking in bios and trying to find out if your funtion key behavior can be reset or adjusted there. Maybe under system configuration? If you are at the point of a fresh XP install, these won't hurt to try. Just some thoughts. Thanks.
Wow, a quick reinstall, though not desired, fixes all. It always makes me wonder, what really went wrong? Will I do it again? Oh, good to hear you're back at it.
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Oh yeah, "Fn" Volume is the only one not working. All other "Fn" buttons still work normally. No errors pop up of any kind. I've had this laptop for about 5 years now and I do allot of media stuff, so I know this just happend. I uninstalled the drivers for the audio and reinstalled. No change. I'm still browsing other sites for a find on my speaker icon as well. I have "sndvol32.exe" in the system32 folder already, so that's not the issue there. I don't believe "Dell Quickset" will fix this either. I "AM" trying to avoid reinstalling XP. No need for a simple fix like this. Oh, my expertise on PC's is pretty high so I've done allot of tests and spent some hours on solving this issue already. Starting to run out of ideas though, short of doing a regedit.
Speed66 - Yes I did check and unchecked the box for showing the speaker icon in the system try a few times, hopping it would "magically" appear. No change. Thanks for responding though.
Speed66 - I went to a link "http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm", and went to line 320. It has a registry fix for the volume icon. Restarted the Laptop after applying and no luck. The icon isn't really a big deal for me anyway. I'm more troubled over the "Fn" volume keys not working being hardware related. I'm hoping the keyboard hasn't gone bad. Oh!! Just for clarification, the "Fn" buttons for my volume that overlap my normal buttons are the "Page Up", "Page Down", and "End". Those buttons do work. I tested it on Firefox 3.6 and M$ Office 2003 - Word. I just tried WinAmp 5.56 for volume check and it also works normally. I guess a reinstall of XP is my only solution for both. It's a 30GB Hard Drive anyway, so it won't take that long to get it running again, and I have no personal stuff on the thing. Plus, I have a few other issues with the laptop I want to correct. Adding RAM is one of them. I'll prolly wait till tonight to do all of that. Again, thanks for the help. It will be a few hours before I'm home again tonight. I welcome other solutions if any. Thanks for anybody else that is reading this.
Speed66 - I looked through the BIOS for any Keyboard related items, and there were none. I'm running version A06 of the standard Dell BIOS's. I know like A23 is the latest I think. I might update the BIOS, but I'm not really sure if it will fix this issue at this time. XP didn't find any "updates" for the keyboard drivers. So, I uninstalled and reinstalled them. After two reboots, still nothing. I found one posting that someone else ran into this exact same issue, but it was also unresolved. I do have another old 6GB Hard Drive just collecting dust. I might put it in and install XP or 2000 just to test the keyboard. If it starts working again, then I know what I have to do. It may be a day or two before I do the install. I'll post again when I do. Thanks for all the input. Didn't really think about keyboard drivers, duh...
Speed66 - Well, I installed the 6GB HD and put XPSP3 on it, and low and behold, "Fn" Volume works!! Thanks for all your help.
Speed66 - I have installed an 80GB HD in the Inspiron 1100, put XP back on it, and "Fn" volume is working perfectly. I've been wanting to upgrade the HD drive anyway. Guess this was the best time to do it as any. The 30GB is in a Dell Inspiron 3800 now with 2000. I'm not sure if the "Fn" volume will start malfunctioning again. We shall see. L8R
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