This will reveal the listings for those installed devices. In the window that appears, locate the lines for 'Keyboard' and 'Mice and other pointing devices' respectively and expand the lines (one by one) by clicking on the plus sign or arrow to the left of the lines themselves. This will launch the Windows Device Manager. To do this in Vista, click on Start, then Run, type 'devmgmt.msc' (without quotes) into the blank that appears and hit OK. So in this situation, or if replacing the batteries does not remedy the situation, you'll need to update the drivers for both devices. Of course, if you have a corded mouse and keyboard, then the batteries would not be at fault because there would be none installed. Sometimes, when the batteries have little charge left in them, the devices will continue to light up, making them appear active, but in reality they will not have enough charge left to make them operational and will be unresponsive as a result, as you've described above.

To fix, first replace the batteries to both devices and see if that makes them operational again. Do I need to replace my computer, or can something else be done?Ī: In most cases, when a mouse and/or keyboard become unresponsive, one of two things are to blame: (1) The batteries in the actual mouse and/or keyboard are dead (or are dying) and need to be replaced or (2) the drivers for either or both devices need to be updated. As of yesterday, the mouse and keyboard both appear to be working, but nothing I type shows up on the monitor and the cursor does not move when I move the mouse. I have an old Dell desktop running Windows Vista.

Computer doesn t recognize keyboard