In spite of huge advances in computer industry to make plug and play hardware a certainty, the fact stays that there are still some different specifications which challenge such an effort. That is, the universal identification and operation of computer keyboards with their motherboards. Keyboards attach straight to motherboard headers and as such are subject to low-level hardware innovation which, sometimes, is less than correct.

Hardware Damage

1. The biggest reason of different contact between a motherboard and keyboard is that of a defective keyboard port. There are two broadly utilized keyboard connective specifications, PS/2 and USB. If a keyboard looks to be fully overlooked at start-up by a PC, there is a high-degree of possibility that there is a hardware failure at connector. In the case of a USB port being defective, you just want to move keyboard connector to other port. If a PS/2 port is defective, you want to obtain a USB keyboard or PS/2 to USB converter to utilize keyboard as there is usually only one PS/2 on any given motherboard.

Unsupported Hardware

2. There are two causes why a particular keyboard may be unsupported by a motherboard. Initially, a keyboard just is several months or years younger than the PC and as a result the motherboard was not intended for that specification. Secondly, if keyboard have some proprietary architecture, like Logitech's G15, keyboard wants to have company driver software installed properly to be identified and work appropriately.

Key Mapping

3. Keyboards are mainly designed with their regional key sets at time of shipping. Though, if a keyboard is used outside of its anticipated region it can work quite irregularly if at all. To repair this failure, you should adjust the key mapping, occasionally known as character mapping, settings in the operating system to make keyboard work properly with different computer.

Motherboard Settings

4. BIOS, Basic Input Output System, of a motherboard have a particular keyboard setting, which it will utilize to search for a keyboard device. If this is set to USB or PS/2 and the keyboard is not plugged into equivalent port, the motherboard may mistake in detecting a device as a keyboard or not detect it at all. A remedy to this case is to unplug all needless devices from PC and only plug in keyboard to a particular port. Then try to enter BIOS and modify this setting. If keyboard is unresponsive, restart PC while plugged into other port and attempt again.

USB Recognition

5. Many previous BIOS systems will not identify a USB keyboard until operating system has loaded and launched keyboard's driver software. This is a problem when one wishes to enter already operating system functions, as their keyboard is not open. The only method to circumvent this case is to utilize a PS/2 adapter with USB keyboard thus motherboard will identify it on boot through PS/2 port. One may also keep a second keyboard around that is a PS/2 type; though, this approach is hardly realistic.