Peripherals
Printers, keyboards, mice and Bluetooth devices — the things that stop working for unhelpful reasons.
10 guides
Why Is My Touchpad Not Working?
There is a key that switches it off, and a setting that disables it when a mouse is connected.
Why Is My Second Monitor Not Being Detected?
Which port, which input source, and the dock that quietly only supports one screen.
Why Is My Printer Printing Blank Pages When It Has Ink?
Full cartridges, blank paper. One test page decides whether the computer is involved at all.
Why Is My Monitor Flickering?
Open the monitor's own menu — whether that flickers decides everything that follows.
Why Are My Headphones Only Working in One Ear?
One accessibility setting silences a whole side — and the cable always breaks in the same place.
Printer Won't Print? The Order to Check Things In
Four causes, one five-minute test that tells you which one you have.
Printer Says Offline But It's Switched On? Here's Why
Offline means your computer can't reach it — usually because the address changed.
Mouse Not Working? What the Cursor Is Doing Tells You Why
Frozen, jumpy, drifting or double-clicking — each points somewhere different.
Keyboard Not Working? Four Symptoms, Four Different Causes
The symptom people most often mistake for broken hardware isn't hardware at all.
Bluetooth Won't Connect? Start by Working Out Which Half Is Failing
Pairing and connecting fail for different reasons. Here's how to tell which one you're stuck on.
How we handle Peripherals
- What these guides cover
- Separating a connection problem from a device problem from a driver problem, in the order that costs least to test.
- Where we stop
- We do not cover disassembling devices, and we do not recommend third-party driver packages.
- Safety line
- Anything involving mains-powered devices starts by switching off at the wall.
- What we check against
- Microsoft support documentation, Bluetooth SIG and USB-IF.