CheckMyBits

Keyboard Test – Check Every Key Online

Press any key and watch it light up below. Keys stay highlighted once pressed, so you can work through the whole keyboard and see at a glance which ones never registered.

Runs in your browser. Nothing is recorded or uploaded.

How to use this keyboard test

  1. Click once anywhere on this page so it has focus.
  2. Press every key in turn, working across each row.
  3. Watch for keys that never light. Those are the ones not reaching your browser.
  4. To check for ghosting, hold several keys down at once and watch the counter.
  5. Press Reset to clear and start again.

What the results mean

Not working? Fix it

Windows 11 and Windows 10
  1. Check the layout: Settings → Time & language → Language & region. Remove any layout you did not add yourself — an unwanted second layout is the usual cause of wrong characters.
  2. Turn off Filter Keys under Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard. It ignores brief or repeated presses and can be switched on by accident with a long Shift hold.
  3. Open Device Manager → Keyboards, right-click your keyboard → Uninstall device, then restart to reinstall it.
  4. For a USB keyboard, try another port and avoid unpowered hubs.
macOS
  1. Check System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources and remove layouts you do not use.
  2. Turn off Slow Keys under Accessibility → Keyboard.
  3. For a Bluetooth keyboard, forget the device and re-pair it; dropped keys are usually a flaky pairing rather than a fault.
  4. On an Intel Mac, resetting the SMC resolves some built-in keyboard faults. On Apple Silicon, simply shut down fully and restart.
Physical problems
  1. Compressed air first. Hold the keyboard at an angle and blow under the affected keys. Debris is the most common cause of a single dead key.
  2. A sticky key after a spill. On most mechanical keyboards the keycap pulls straight off, and the switch beneath can be cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. Do not attempt this on a laptop keyboard; the clips break easily.
  3. Test the cable. Try another USB port and another cable if it is detachable. Wiggle the connector while watching this page — if keys drop out as you move it, the cable is the fault.
  4. Rule out the computer. Plug the keyboard into another machine. If it fails there too, it is the keyboard.
Gaming: keys not registering together
  1. Hold W, A and Shift together and watch the counter. If the third does not register, that is ghosting.
  2. There is no software fix. The limit is in the keyboard's wiring matrix.
  3. Keyboards advertising “N-key rollover” or “anti-ghosting” handle every key at once. Most membrane keyboards do not.
  4. Some gaming keyboards have a mode switch that limits rollover for compatibility — check for a Fn combination that toggles it.

Frequently asked questions

Are my keystrokes recorded or sent anywhere?
No. Each key press is matched to a box on the diagram and discarded. There is no upload code on this page and nothing is stored. This matters more here than on other tests, because a page that watches every key is the same shape as a keylogger — so the claim has to be verifiable. You can check it yourself: open your browser's developer tools, go to the Network tab, and press keys. Nothing is sent.
A key lights up on screen but types nothing in my documents. Why?
That means the keyboard and its driver are fine and the problem is elsewhere — usually the wrong keyboard layout selected, or an application capturing that key. Check your system's input language first, since a layout mismatch makes keys produce characters you did not expect while still registering here.
What is ghosting, and how do I test for it?
Ghosting is when a keyboard cannot register certain combinations of keys pressed at once, because its internal wiring shares connections between them. Hold down several keys together and watch the counter. Cheap membrane keyboards typically manage two or three before extra presses stop registering; mechanical keyboards with N-key rollover handle every key at once. It matters mainly for gaming and fast typing.
Why does my Fn key not light up?
The Fn key is handled inside the keyboard's own hardware and never reaches the operating system or browser as a key press. That is normal and not a fault. The keys it modifies will register, but Fn itself cannot.
Some keys do nothing at all. Is the keyboard dead?
Not necessarily. If several adjacent keys fail together, that usually points to one connection rather than several dead switches — on a laptop, a loose ribbon cable. A single dead key is more often debris under the keycap. Try compressed air first; it costs nothing and fixes a good proportion of cases.
My keyboard types the wrong characters.
That is a layout problem, not a hardware one. Your system is set to a different layout than the keyboard is printed with — commonly US instead of UK, which swaps the @ and " keys. On Windows, check Settings → Time & language → Language & region. On Mac, System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources.
Does this work on a phone or tablet?
Not meaningfully. On-screen touch keyboards do not report physical key positions the way a hardware keyboard does, so most keys will not light. If you have a physical keyboard attached to a tablet it will work normally.
Why does the page capture my keys instead of scrolling?
Keys like Space and the function keys normally scroll the page or trigger browser actions, which would stop them registering here. The test intercepts them so they can be shown. Tab and your browser's own shortcuts are deliberately left alone so you can always navigate away.

Last updated 17 October 2026