How do you control backlight brightness on an HP zv6000?

Hold down on the blue "Fn" key and press the key that has a blue sun on it with an up arrow... It will be one of the "F" keys... like F8...

No problem... Come again...

One little(big) problem...

That's a great way to turn up the backilght and i used to use it extensively, and still need to use it. But, the problem is that my zv6000's keyboard has failed, and so i've been using a USB keyboard for about a year.It has been working great, the only problem is that is doesn't have the Fn key nor the blue sun symbols.... . I really need to use that feature because my laptop almost always has the backlight on when on battery, and off when on AC power. I use the laptop as a desktop replacement, and the battery is more than 5 years old so it doesn't last even 10 minutes.. So, other than buying a replacement keyboard or battery or any other hardware, can anyone suggest some onsreen keyboard with the fn and the sun keys, or some software to control the backlight. Please help!!! Thanks.

You can try using some key mapping software to emulate the FN key.

cheers ...

I can't remap the Fn key because it doesn't send any scan codes. I tried sharpkeys and it doesn't work. i have a hp pavilion zv6000 laptop. I couldn't understand how to use autohotkeys(i don't think it'll work anyway.),because it (Fn) is a 'hardware control and cannot be remapped with software'. That's why i'm looking for an on screen keyboard with the fn key already supported directly, or some hp utility which allows controlling the backlight without the fn+F7/F8 key. Thanks for the reply, but please help more. Thanks!

Wonder if your BIOS has the setting of "FN on external keyboard" option.

cheers ...

Another thing to try is to use your graphic controller app to manipulate how the screen is being presented.

cheers ...

Nope. No options at all related to keyboard, inn the stupid Phoenix BIOS f.1C. And, using the Catalyst Control Center for the integrated ATi Xpress 200M, there are brightness, gamma, and contrast controls, but no backlight controls, and the other controls just sort of ruin the picture... gamma control just increases the intensity, making the inmage whiter and more 'washed-out' looking. Same with brightness(just increase the whiteness of the image, not much effect in fixing my problem.
On browsing other forums, i found that to turn the backlight from the switched state in which its off with AC current, to on with AC current, take out the adapter, to make the laptop run on battery, then shut down, then plug in the adapter, then turn on the comp. I tried this but it only worked once out of 10 tries.

I really appreciate your trying your best to help and the quick replies, but i still need more help. I'm trying my best, please continue helping me. I'm very grateful. Thanks!

Have you also tried to set the power scheme to "always saving battery" even on ac adapter? Sometimes this would "dim" the screen a bit.

About the failed keyboard, what was exactly happening? Have you try to salvage it to at least using the FN part of the keyboard?

cheers ...

I tried all the power schemes available: home/office desk, always on, minimal power management, max battery, presentation, portable laptop... but none of them change anything. The only difference they make is that you can set how long to wait before turning off the monitor, hard disk, blah blah...
My zv6000 laptop is about 5 years old. when it was about three years old, the F8, 8, I ,K, comma, keys stopped working(they are all in one line.) It was probably because of some circuit or dust problem that the 5 keys (in a diagonal line) stopped working. Then a few months after that, all the keys stopped working suddenly, and at any random time, one key would continously be entered, like ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt or kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk , etc.. I would have to sort of put a lot of pressure and sweep over the keyboard forcefully pushing all keys to stop the tttttttttttttttttttttttttt
and kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk... But the problems didn't go away. Then, I opened up the laptop and disconnected the keyboard cable from the motherboard. But ridiculously and ironically, the keyboard would still enter any random key repeated(usually ctrl), even though it was disconnected from the motherboard!!!. Then, after a few days, it suddenly stopped doing that. Now i have a totally useless and non functional keyboard (no response on pushing any key, sometimes starts entering repeated keys like before,then you have to restart to stop that.). (now it rarely does that.) other than that, there's not much to say about the keyboard. The warranty had been over before the troubles had started. (By the way, i upgraded my laptop's ram from 512MB to the 2GB max a few months ago, to be able to run my animation software well(flash CS4,photoshop,etc).. The keyboard's still disconnected, and hasn't shown any hope of working again. I'm almost an expert in computer hardware, [way ahead of my age(14)], and i tried my best to somehow revive the keyboard,when i opened it up for regular cleaning every few months, but nothing i do ever fixes it. I've tried cleaning it and the motherboard connector, and the cpu and heatsink unit and fans... Not a single key responds in any way, even the fn key, and i haven't been able to use the fn +F7/8 since the F8 failed. Now,even the touchpad doesn't work correctly, i have to use atleast 3 finger for the cursor to move, and it moves very erratically because i have to use 3 fingers with a lot of force. I know this laptop is nearing its end in a few years, but for know its pretty good for most games(2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 2 GB RAM, 100 GB HDD, 128+128MB(shared from system ram) Ati XPress 200M (overclocked from 300mhz engine clock to 375mhz), and i'm stuck with it. By the way, if you know how to overclock hp laptops like mine, please tell me,i've tried almost everything.

Thanks for showing interest in my problem, i hope we'll be able to find a solution somehow. Please remember, this is the first forum i've participated in, so i don't have much knowledge about them (pretty obvious from my HUGE post). Sorry about that. But, please help!... Thanks!

I can see that only a keyboard replacement would help out your situation. We ran pretty much over what we (mostly you) can find and try.

I see few offers on the net as low as $29.99
http://www.shop.com/+-a-zv6000+lapto...1-k24-st.shtml

cheers ...

Yeah, i suppose there's nothing else we can do. Thanks so much! You've made my first forum experience great! Thanks for all the help!