Category: Tips

How to remap your Chromebook’s keyboard

Chromebooks are pretty different from traditional laptops in a lot of ways — and not just because of their software.

The most obvious physical difference? Chromebooks feature keyboards with a variety of Chrome-OS-specific functions, which means they don’t have standard keys like F1 or even Caps Lock. Depending on your style of working, that could be a welcome change or a massive pain.

If you aren’t thrilled with that arrangement, though, don’t despair. You can actually remap a fair number of your Chromebook’s keys and dramatically change how you use your device.

To get started, simply head into the Keyboard section of your Chromebook’s settings:

Click the clock in the lower right corner of the screen.

Tap the gear-shaped icon in the panel that appears.

Scroll down to the Device subhead and click the “Keyboard” option.

There, you’ll see a list of keys you can customize:

The Launcher key (sometimes also called the Search key)

The Ctrl key

The Alt key

The Escape key

The Backspace key

The Assistant key (on Pixelbooks only)

Each key can be remapped to handle any of the following functions:

Launcher (the Chrome OS app drawer and search prompt)

Ctrl

Alt

Caps Lock

Escape

Backspace

Assistant (on devices where Google Assistant is available)

To remap any key, just click the box alongside it and select whatever function you’d like it to have. You might want to change the Launcher key back to a Caps Lock, for instance. Or if you like having the Launcher key in its default role but still miss Caps Lock, you might want to assign the Caps Lock function to your Escape key or Assistant key.

If you have any Chromebook other than the Pixelbook (which, as mentioned before, has a dedicated Google Assistant key) and want easier access to Assistant, you might consider assigning the Escape key or even the Launcher key to handle that function.

There’s one more keyboard remapping option worth noting: Beneath that list of customizable keys, you’ll see a setting called “Treat top-row keys as function keys.” If you activate the toggle alongside that, the specialty keys on the top row of your Chromebook’s keyboard — the commands for going back, reloading a page, maximizing a window, and so on — will be transformed into standard F1-style function keys. You’ll still be able to access their specialty functions in that scenario, but only if you first hold down the Launcher key and then press them.

How to improve PC performance by fixing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver

Sometimes a Windows 10 update will not replace an old driver like you would expect. In those cases, you must troubleshoot and solve the problem yourself.

Let’s face it, for most users, if a computer boots up and they can start using it, then the computer is working fine—well, at least good enough. However, this apathetic view of computer health and maintenance can lead to serious problems down the road, especially if your computer is using an outdated device driver.

I recently repurposed an old gaming laptop as my new business PC. This process included updating the OS from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After the update, I noticed that the CPU fan was constantly running, and the PC performance was sluggish at best. So, I did some troubleshooting with the Windows Task Manager.

I discovered that, for unexplained reasons and even after a lengthy update process, the computer was still using an outdated and deprecated device driver. This was causing major performance issues and was obviously unacceptable.

This tutorial shows you how to use the Task Manager to identify bad acting devices, how to troubleshoot the problem, and then how to fix it.

How to troubleshoot and fix a faulty device driver

The Windows Task Manager, best reached by the infamous keyboard shortcut of CTRL-ALT-Delete, is one of the first troubleshooting tools you should turn to when your PC starts behaving badly. By thoroughly examining what processes are running and how much power they are using, you can get a general idea of what devices or services are causing problems and which are working properly.

As you can see in Figure A, the driver for Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology chipset is continuously tasking the CPU at close to 20%, even when the PC is sitting idle. This device driver is also continuously claiming almost 7MB of RAM for some reason–this should not be happening; however, it does explain the constant running of the CPU fan and the PC’s overall sluggishness.

After checking the Intel support website, it turns out there is an updated 64-bit driver for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology chipset available, which I downloaded. Before we can install the new driver, we must first uninstall the old driver.

Type “control panel” into the Windows 10 desktop search box and choose the appropriate Control Panel application from the list of results to reach a screen similar to Figure B, which shows the small icon view. Click the link labeled Programs And Features.

Scroll down the list of devices until you find Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Figure C)–click that entry and then uninstall it. You will have to restart your PC to finish the process.

Upon restart, a generic driver will take care of running the Intel chipset for you. This generic driver will work, but you will sacrifice a noticeable level of performance, so it is best to install the new Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver.

Right-click the Start Menu button and select the Device Driver item from the list of configuration services. Scroll down to Storage controllers, expand the entry, and select the appropriate device (Figure D).

Double-click the Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller entry to reveal the Properties screen and then click the Driver tab (Figure E). Click the Update Driver button and select the Have Disk option to install the driver downloaded previously.

When the installation process is complete, you will be prompted to restart your PC once again.

Now, when you check the Task Manager (Figure F) after the restart, you will notice that the Intel Rapid Storage Technology process is quiet when your PC is idle, using 0% of the CPU and only .8MB of RAM–in other words, behaving like it is supposed to behave. Problem troubleshooted and solved.

If your Windows 10 computer is not performing as well as you would like, check the running processes using the Task Manager. That basic built-in app can provide the information you need to troubleshoot the problem and develop a solution.