Some recent HP models feature the multimedia keys which overlaps the F1 – F12 keys. What HP does is to activate Fn key by default. What this means is that you need to press Fn + F1 to get the regular F1 key function. It turns out to be a very annoying feature for me since I frequently use Alt + F2(fire up command prompt on Ubuntu) and Alt + F4 to close applications. With the new feature in HP, I have to press Alt + Fn + F2 and Alt + Fn + F4, it’s a pain in the neck.

The solution can be found on HP’s official website


Disable Fn in the BIOS

To disable, or enable, the function key (fn) in the BIOS, do the following steps.
  1. Press the power button to turn on the computer.
  2. Press the f10 key to open the BIOS setup window.
  3. Use the right-arrow or left-arrow keys to navigate to the System Configuration option.
  4. Use the up-arrow or down-arrow keys to navigate to the Action Keys Mode option, and then press the enter key to display the Enable / Disable menu.

  5. Select the desired mode:

    • Disabled : Requires pressing Fn key + f1 through f12 to activate action keys
    • Enabled : Requires pressing only f1 through f12 to activate action keys
  6. Press f10 key to save the selection and restart the computer.
The function key (fn) option can be reset at any time.