Never assume! 
I've been trying to track down an issue with the Alt-F4 and Alt-Tab functions malfunctioning on a new build. I chased down every possible reason for those key combinations to fail, and it turns out there are a lot of ways to cause that failure! Yet, at the end of all that troubleshooting, the issue remained. Alt-F4 did nothing, even though it should have brought up the menu to shut down, switch users, or restart. The Alt-Tab function was also completely non-functional, which was equally annoying.
I shut down for the night and vowed to return to the problem in the morning. As I was drifting off to sleep, I had an epiphany: maybe it was the keyboard!
Sure enough, it was a defective keyboard. Since this was a keyboard I had recently used for testing other computers, it was surprising that it suddenly "forgot" a few keys!
I should have remembered Occam’s Razor—it probably would have saved me a lot of time!
I've been trying to track down an issue with the Alt-F4 and Alt-Tab functions malfunctioning on a new build. I chased down every possible reason for those key combinations to fail, and it turns out there are a lot of ways to cause that failure! Yet, at the end of all that troubleshooting, the issue remained. Alt-F4 did nothing, even though it should have brought up the menu to shut down, switch users, or restart. The Alt-Tab function was also completely non-functional, which was equally annoying.
I shut down for the night and vowed to return to the problem in the morning. As I was drifting off to sleep, I had an epiphany: maybe it was the keyboard!
Sure enough, it was a defective keyboard. Since this was a keyboard I had recently used for testing other computers, it was surprising that it suddenly "forgot" a few keys!
I should have remembered Occam’s Razor—it probably would have saved me a lot of time!
My Computers
-
At a glance
Win 11 Pro 25H2, Build 26200.9168Intel Core i5 14500, 14th Generation64GB DDR4GeForce RTX 4060- OS
- Win 11 Pro 25H2, Build 26200.9168
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Home Brew
- CPU
- Intel Core i5 14500, 14th Generation
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte B760M G P WIFI
- Memory
- 64GB DDR4
- Graphics Card(s)
- GeForce RTX 4060
- Sound Card
- Chipset Realtek
- Monitor(s) Displays
- LG 45" Ultragear & Acer 24" 1080p
- Screen Resolution
- 5120x1440 & 1920x1080
- Hard Drives
- Crucial P310 2TB 2280 PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD (O/S)
Silicon Power 2TB US75 NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 SSD (backup)
Crucial BX500 2TB 3D NAND (2nd backup)
Seagate 4TB Ironwolf, rotating HDD archive files
External off-line backup Drives: 2 NVMe 4TB drives in external enclosures
- PSU
- Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 750W
- Case
- LIAN LI LANCOOL 216 E-ATX PC Case
- Cooling
- Lots of fans!
- Keyboard
- Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000
- Mouse
- Logitech G305
- Internet Speed
- Verizon FiOS 1GB
- Browser
- Firefox
- Antivirus
- Malware Bytes & Windows Defender Security
-
At a glance
Win 11 Pro 25H2, Build 26200.9168Intel Core i5 1440032GB DDR5Intel 700 Embedded GPU- Operating System
- Win 11 Pro 25H2, Build 26200.9168
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Home Brew
- CPU
- Intel Core i5 14400
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte B760M DS3H AX
- Memory
- 32GB DDR5
- Graphics card(s)
- Intel 700 Embedded GPU
- Sound Card
- Realtek Embedded
- Monitor(s) Displays
- 27" HP 1080p
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1080
- Hard Drives
- Crucial P310 2TB 2280 PCIe Gen4 eD NAND PCIe SSD
Samsung EVO 990 2TB NVMe Gen4 SSD
Samsung 2TB SATA SSD
- PSU
- Thermaltake Smart BM3 650W
- Case
- Okinos Micro ATX Case
- Cooling
- Fans
- Keyboard
- Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000
- Mouse
- Logitech G305
- Internet Speed
- Verizon FiOS 1GB
- Browser
- Firefox
- Antivirus
- Malware Bytes & Windows Defender Security
-
Nimo N171 17" Laptop, (Intel i3-1215U, 16GB RAM, 2TB NVMe, Win11 Pro)
Acemagic Vista Mini PC V1 (Intel N150, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVMe, Win11 Pro)
HP ENVY h8-1540t, (24GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 2TB HDD, Win11 Pro)
