I have a HP dv6395 laptop (should be applicable to the whole HP dv6000 series) and it comes with a remote. Once in a while it just stops working. The ultimate problem solving technique of resatrting windows doesn’t solve this problem. Usually whenever there’s a problem with any IR remote, I use the digital camera technique to ensure that the IR light actually comes from the remote. In this case the RC was actually woking and I couldn’t find anything else wrong. The related services were working, but none of the functions were actually executed by the OS. Powering off and removing the power supply too didn’t work.
Finally I had this logical intuition, where I thought that since the remote can power on the laptop even if its powered off, unless I remove the battery the IR sesning circuit will not be reset. That worked, removing the battery and then inserting it back restored the IR functionality.