Comprehending Acer wireless devices

Another post to do with hardware, this time with the wireless keyboard that come with newer Acer desktops. Mine looks like this and came bundled with a wireless optical mouse with the Aspire M5640. Documentation that comes with the hardware is scant and hardly informative but a little digging around solved that. So here's hoping this post would help those in trouble.

Locating the set model number was confusing and very misleading because each item had its own model number and serial ID ... and it turns out the correct one is on the USB receiver. This particular set is an OEM from Chincony Keyboards model WUR0420TR (as shown here on their website). Its a basic 2-channel 27MHz RF wireless multimedia keyboard with additional function keys (pre-programmed) and volume controls in Windows.

To link the devices up, just plug in the USB receiver into any free USB port. Press the button in the middle and the receiver should start blinking steadily . Then just press once EITHER the mouse or keyboard connect button located on the underside (you do not need to press both devices). If successfully paired up, the receiver will stop blinking. These are the same steps to change the channel frequency of the devices should there be any interference that affects the hardware behaviour.

By default out of the package, the mouse and keyboard will work on different channels and will alternatively pair up whenever you initiate the steps above. In noisy situations (e.g. offices with many similar devices) you might have to force devices to use the same channel by which you have to change the device ID tag. The steps are similar as before, but this time press and HOLD the connect button on the device affect for more than 3 seconds to change the device ID. This will force the devices to use the same channel frequency but with different ID tags to differentiate signal sources.

Although driverless in Windows XP and Vista, Chicony actually does have its own drivers that provides the same functionality as the default Windows HID driver but it goes one up by providing an on-screen indication panel on whether the num/caps/scroll lock has been activated. Additionally the panel purportedly also shows the battery signal from both devices - basically, if it's lit, your battery is weak.

To download this driver/utility, do a Google search (you can also use the Google search on the side panel of my blog) on the model number "WUR0420TR" to locate an executable WUR0420TR.exe which weighs in around 4MB++ (most sites are in Russian though so be careful but the drivers are in English). Note that the drivers MUST be installed as an administrator and in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode if you are using Vista, else you'll get errors and non-stop pop-up message boxes. If everything goes as planned, the drivers will install correctly and upon reboot you'll see the on-screen panel. If you don't like installing the driver, you can basically extract the application (CNYHKey.exe and HKCYDLL.dll required) using i6comp and run that in your startup menu.

UPDATE 05092008 - The driver I used was downloaded from here.

UPDATE 18092008 - Released drivers from Acer available here. The drivers are listed for model WUG0570 but it works in both XP and Vista.

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