[Q] Touchscreen unresponsive stripe - digitizer problem? - Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My Atrix's screen has become unresponsive in a vertical column (if the phone is in portrait mode) that lines up about with the W, E, and S keys. Restarting fixed the problem for maybe 20 seconds or so after the phone became usable, but doesn't seem to have made a difference after about the third time or so. I also removed the battery and held down the power button for ~45 seconds and then put everything back together, which also seemed to have helped for a minute or less before the stripe became unresponsive again. I also restored to yesterday's backup a couple different times (CM 7.2 stable), which also temporarily helped.
So after a brief search, it seems that the digitizer may be the issue. Is there any way to tell for sure? At first it seemed like a software problem, but it could also just be the digitizer acting erratically because it's going out, so I'm not really sure, and I'd rather not attempt a repair that may not be necessary.

ErrorCode680 said:
My Atrix's screen has become unresponsive in a vertical column (if the phone is in portrait mode) that lines up about with the W, E, and S keys. Restarting fixed the problem for maybe 20 seconds or so after the phone became usable, but doesn't seem to have made a difference after about the third time or so. I also removed the battery and held down the power button for ~45 seconds and then put everything back together, which also seemed to have helped for a minute or less before the stripe became unresponsive again. I also restored to yesterday's backup a couple different times (CM 7.2 stable), which also temporarily helped.
So after a brief search, it seems that the digitizer may be the issue. Is there any way to tell for sure? At first it seemed like a software problem, but it could also just be the digitizer acting erratically because it's going out, so I'm not really sure, and I'd rather not attempt a repair that may not be necessary.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are some screen tester apps on Play which you could use to see if, in fact, your digitizer is a problem.

barry_ said:
there are some screen tester apps on Play which you could use to see if, in fact, your digitizer is a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have any specific recommendations? I downloaded the touch test app from here (http://www.freewarelovers.com/android/app/touch-test) to see how much of the screen was misbehaving and discovered that it was a perfect stripe the whole way down, but because I'm not terribly knowledgeable about troubleshooting phone hardware, I don't know if that's telling me it's the digitizer or something else. I attached a screenshot that shows where the stripe is.

ErrorCode680 said:
Do you have any specific recommendations? I downloaded the touch test app from here (http://www.freewarelovers.com/android/app/touch-test) to see how much of the screen was misbehaving and discovered that it was a perfect stripe the whole way down, but because I'm not terribly knowledgeable about troubleshooting phone hardware, I don't know if that's telling me it's the digitizer or something else. I attached a screenshot that shows where the stripe is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
#
From what I've seen on here it does look like your digitizer is at fault. I have never had to change mine but there are plenty of posters on here who have and you can look at their experiences to assist you. Also, here's a video I found so you can see what you'll have to do. Good Luck!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqz-3LdIEk

barry_ said:
#
From what I've seen on here it does look like your digitizer is at fault. I have never had to change mine but there are plenty of posters on here who have and you can look at their experiences to assist you. Also, here's a video I found so you can see what you'll have to do. Good Luck!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqz-3LdIEk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's unfortunate, but at least I know that's what's wrong. Thanks for your help!

Related

[Q] Menu button flashing issue

Hi to everyone in this forum. I've recently received as a present a new toshiba folio 100, but, since I'm experiencing an annoying menu button flashing, I've thought of it as a software problem so I upgraded the folio using the foliomod1.3c and applied the rotate patch and also the 1.3c fix patch. The menu still flash with no apparent logic. I've tried to kill all applications running and it's still there. It seem to come up and down at random. I ask to all in this forum: do you believe it's a hardware issue or is a software issue? Because if it's a hardware issue I'm going to try to have a new folio from toshiba. I'm overall very pleased with the work that Dexter made to make the folio an usable machine but this flashing is driving me crazy. I use the folio basically as a portable scientific pdf reader so I need to concentrate on what I read and this flashing is really annoying. I would like very much to thank you all in this forum in advance for all the suggestion/help you could provide.
use my "foliobuttons" app
teknoraver said:
use my "foliobuttons" app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a request that serve All those who suffer MENU crazy button .
Is it possible to prepare application you can setting ON/OFF the MENU button
Most of the time useless button.
sometimes button jump after 10 minutes, sometimes after an hour
Usually I fix the problem by changing the settings with FolioButtons 1.1.
If you could add to FolioButtons on/off operation for menu Buttons was the best.
Hi teknoraver,
Can you add enabled/disabled menu button in foliobuttons application ?
flashing on...
teknoraver said:
use my "foliobuttons" app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am pretty desperate about this issue, because none of the methods seem to help...
Right now the buttons work opposite- Menu button flashes mad and none of the other 3 responds...dont know how it happened
Just a thought- while the folio is booting up the menu button ALREADY flashes! I have zero understanding in there but isn't it a process that loads / starts early in the line?
I appreciate everyone's effort trying to solve this bug as it makes this handy tool a useless pile of crap.
I was wondering how many folio users are suffering of this crazy buttons madness.
Mine was crazy from the very beginning; I sent it back for repair and toshiba only did a firmware restore... Nothing changed at all!
It makes my folio almost unusable!
bye bye crazy buttons
After two weeks of testing and a complete breakdown of my folio100, I finally find the problem or just crazy buttons and freezing of the screen.
I drag a thickness in the screen in the bottom right corner of the screen to isolate the audio connector and it works better than a miracle again.
The only downside is that the screen comes out slightly from the slot but nothing really bad.
The thickness I put slightly too big or-1.4 mm I'll Demount next week to put a finer and I'll try to take pictures in passing.
Note however that the loss of waranty is innevitable.
Sorry for my bad english ;-)
I think it's a hardware issue and even a build quality issue.
If i hold my folio at the side of the buttons, i get the flashing buttons problem (even the foliobuttons app will not help), if i hold it at the other side, i've got no problems at all.
Do you have an animated background? Because I saw that some people had this issue with an animated background...
Hi Mshr73, nice first post indeed
Could you post some pictures of what you did?
Mshr73 said:
After two weeks of testing and a complete breakdown of my folio100, I finally find the problem or just crazy buttons and freezing of the screen.
I drag a thickness in the screen in the bottom right corner of the screen to isolate the audio connector and it works better than a miracle again.
The only downside is that the screen comes out slightly from the slot but nothing really bad.
The thickness I put slightly too big or-1.4 mm I'll Demount next week to put a finer and I'll try to take pictures in passing.
Note however that the loss of waranty is innevitable.
Sorry for my bad english ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
seems to get better...
I really don’t want to be too quick on this, but Dexter’s 1.4 seems to bring relief to this issue - for 2 days I have been running this mod the menu button stopped flashing!!
Any similar impressions on this?
vietnamibalzsam said:
I really don’t want to be too quick on this, but Dexter’s 1.4 seems to bring relief to this issue - for 2 days I have been running this mod the menu button stopped flashing!!
Any similar impressions on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way pal, I guess I'm in the opposite situation. It still happens to me, and sometimes I think it even got worse... well, I can always look at crazy keys as a "special feature" that no other tablet will have!!!
I just tested without thickness under the screen, with foliomod 1.4 and after a few hours I again the problem of crazy buttons.
Mshr73 said:
After two weeks of testing and a complete breakdown of my folio100, I finally find the problem or just crazy buttons and freezing of the screen.
I drag a thickness in the screen in the bottom right corner of the screen to isolate the audio connector and it works better than a miracle again.
The only downside is that the screen comes out slightly from the slot but nothing really bad.
The thickness I put slightly too big or-1.4 mm I'll Demount next week to put a finer and I'll try to take pictures in passing.
Note however that the loss of waranty is innevitable.
Sorry for my bad english ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I just finished dismantling e reassembling my Folio. Following your hint, I cut a piece of paper and put it between the audio connector and the back of the screen (yes, it was metal vs metal). I'll see whether it's gonna work or not. Crossing fingers for now.
Not that I'm so confident in leaving a piece of paper stuck right where the DC input is .
BTW, did you try with a smaller thickness? Even if this is the problem, I'm wondering whether a piece of paper would be enough or not.
thyself can someone. post pictures of before and after details?
we will be much appreciated
i didn't have the crazy buttons issue this far in 2 weeks, just my home butten needs to be pressed harder. I'm pretty sure it's hardware related, i read often that users experience it when changing from an warm room to a colder one, or in regions where its verry humid(some circuit closes maybe...). so Mshr73 is on the right way as far as i can tell.
Dexter's 1.4
^Sbk79^ said:
No way pal, I guess I'm in the opposite situation. It still happens to me, and sometimes I think it even got worse... well, I can always look at crazy keys as a "special feature" that no other tablet will have!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really sorry mate, I hope it will solved this for others too...
Anyhow, it is so disturbing, that I was already considering to send the tablet back to Toshiba...
I'll try to do this weekend if I do not have too many customers. I post the result Monday.
Mshr73 said:
I'll try to do this weekend if I do not have too many customers. I post the result Monday.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking forward to your pictures, too... because my trial simply didn't work.
I tried with both a single piece of paper and then with 2 pieces wrapped in tape. I put these spacers between the back of the display and DC/audio connector.
In both cases, the crazy keys phenomenon started to happen after 15-20 minutes of usage.
In most cases, it starts to show when I unlock the device. As soon as I unlock it, home and menu buttons light up with no apparent reason and go crazy for 10-30 seconds.
Then, I even tried to loosen just a little the screws (I read, somewhere in the forum, of a guy who said that he solved his crazy keys and screen lag problems this way). I mean, all screws are now locked but not too tight. Well, I have to say that I don't have any screen lag anymore (I even removed the piece of paper, from the battery area, which used to solve the issue before) but crazy keys still happen. I'm going slightly mad
^Sbk79^ said:
I'm looking forward to your pictures, too... because my trial simply didn't work.
I tried with both a single piece of paper and then with 2 pieces wrapped in tape. I put these spacers between the back of the display and DC/audio connector.
In both cases, the crazy keys phenomenon started to happen after 15-20 minutes of usage.
In most cases, it starts to show when I unlock the device. As soon as I unlock it, home and menu buttons light up with no apparent reason and go crazy for 10-30 seconds.
Then, I even tried to loosen just a little the screws (I read, somewhere in the forum, of a guy who said that he solved his crazy keys and screen lag problems this way). I mean, all screws are now locked but not too tight. Well, I have to say that I don't have any screen lag anymore (I even removed the piece of paper, from the battery area, which used to solve the issue before) but crazy keys still happen. I'm going slightly mad
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well ... with a piece of paper the problem Come back.
I handed a piece of cardboard and the problem disappears.
I think that to raise the screen to solve them but I'm still not 100% sure.

[Q] Touch Screen randomly "pressing" a certain area

So my HTC Desire Z, running CM7, has recently started acting up. There is a certain spot on my touch screen that, at random times, will act as if it's been touched. In GO SMS PRO, this occasionally lines up with a message, so I can see it press, pause, press, pause, etc. It's really annoying and screws up my usage of the phone. If I turn the screen off and then on again, it'll usually go away for a bit.
I've tried googling this issue but it's a touchy thing to phrase. (hehe, "touchy", I didn't even mean to do that!)
Does anybody know how I can find out what is causing this and/or how to fix it?
tl;dr: touch screen is "pressing" a specific spot at random
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions &
Read the Forum Rules Ref Posting
Moving to Q&A
NspktrSpacetime said:
So my HTC Desire Z, running CM7, has recently started acting up. There is a certain spot on my touch screen that, at random times, will act as if it's been touched. In GO SMS PRO, this occasionally lines up with a message, so I can see it press, pause, press, pause, etc. It's really annoying and screws up my usage of the phone. If I turn the screen off and then on again, it'll usually go away for a bit.
I've tried googling this issue but it's a touchy thing to phrase. (hehe, "touchy", I didn't even mean to do that!)
Does anybody know how I can find out what is causing this and/or how to fix it?
tl;dr: touch screen is "pressing" a specific spot at random
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not rocket science is it bro ......... i figure you already can see the writing on the wall ...... sounds like your digitiser is on its way out. Quite a common issue on HTC's the capacitive touch screens just wear out.
My advice is backup, do a factory reset. see if problem persists, if so maybe try a different ROM (just for the sake of testing) see if problem persists.
If so you know its a hardware fault.
The good news is its really pretty easy to replace a digitiser in a Desire Z, I bought my own Desire Z 2nd hand with a dodgy digitiser (for about half its 2nd hand value) and replaced the digitiser in about 3 hours (that was going very slowly and being very careful)
Here is a link to the disassembly guides i used
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-dR8CHEGjY&list=PLEBB8603769CE1417&index=16&feature=plpp_video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SliyuYBvfic&list=PLEBB8603769CE1417&index=14&feature=plpp_video
Desire Z is one of the easiest phones i have ever worked on HTC obviously designed it to be repairable, almost everything is held by screws. So you don't have to 'unclip' loads of weak plastic crap.
All you need is to take it sloooooooowly and NEVER use much force, better to take an hour to do a job that should take 10mins than to rush or get impatient and break sh*t.
Good luck
Citizen
Update: So the "pressing" isn't really happening any more, but now there's a dead area that takes up an entire horizontal portion of the screen. I tested it out using a TouchTest app (picture 1) and the cut shows the dead portion. However, I tried it again later, and the dead portion moved up! I'm very confused, haha

Screen Tearing - Artifacting

I've had my TFP for about three days and I'm getting heavy screen tearing. It shuts down the entire left third of my screen. Every thing goes blank and then I get flickering.
What's the solution to this?
try a reboot or soft reset
Hello,
I've had very similar issue with my screen. Every now and again when I wake my TFP it looks as though it's running in 16-bit color mode. Once unlocked the screen returns to normal.
I've also experienced the screen taring as described above. As with the other issue things usually place them selves after a few seconds. Once I had to reboot to return the screen to normal.
Scary as hell the first time it happened, though I had fried my prime....
Sadly I have not had the chance to look into why this happens or find a fix for it but as it doesn't keep the tablet from working correct it not very high on my priority list.
demandarin said:
try a reboot or soft reset
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
Here is a helpful video for this procedure
Where did you buy your prime from? Reason I ask if this doesn't fix the problem you may consider the option of going back and exchanging for another
unit.
I did the cold boot and have done a complete factory re-set twice. Neither fixed the problem! Terribly disappointing! I really do like this device but the screen tearing makes it almost unusable!
Would a new software update potentially fix this? I got mine from Best Buy and have a week left to return it. There are none in the stores locally.
Guardsix said:
I did the cold boot and have done a complete factory re-set twice. Neither fixed the problem! Terribly disappointing! I really do like this device but the screen tearing makes it almost unusable!
Would a new software update potentially fix this? I got mine from Best Buy and have a week left to return it. There are none in the stores locally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just an idea, does it also show on a screenshot? Maybe if it does it can be fixed with a update, otherwise it is best to return it because then it most likely is hardware I guess.
Here's a screen shot of my problem. It doesn't happen if I just try a screen shoot still picutre.
http://youtu.be/-EXXF-hil_E?hd=1
i've seen this stuff happening with my prime also, but after reboot it was solved..
if it's not disappearing after a reboot i would say the gpu\soc is having troubles (hardware issue)
First of all, that isn't a screen shot. That is video of the screen. A screen shot is taken by the device and saved to an image file so it can be uploaded. You may have something wrong with your screen, which a SCREEN shot would rule out or in.
slayvus said:
First of all, that isn't a screen shot. That is video of the screen. A screen shot is taken by the device and saved to an image file so it can be uploaded. You may have something wrong with your screen, which a SCREEN shot would rule out or in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify, I know what a screen shot is and I have tried to capture a still picture of my screen tearing but it doesn't take. I've tried it on everyone of my 5 screens but it only happens as show in my video.
Guardsix said:
Here's a screen shot of my problem. It doesn't happen if I just try a screen shoot still picutre.
http://youtu.be/-EXXF-hil_E?hd=1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen that problem on several primes. Usually viewing Youtube video's causes this. I've also seen the taskbar "micro jumping" while this is occuring.
Guardsix said:
Just to clarify, I know what a screen shot is and I have tried to capture a still picture of my screen tearing but it doesn't take. I've tried it on everyone of my 5 screens but it only happens as show in my video.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have a Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable(Or whatever it is the Prime uses)?
They are about $6-$10 shipped online, but if you have one of these already plug it into a TV or something. If the artifacting still happens, it's the GPU. If it doesn't though, it's probably a faulty cable or circuitry.
Turn off the ASUS 'quick settings'. Also unmount the SD card.
I Believe I've Got It Fixed!
Last night I did a complete wipe of my TFP. I turned it off and then held the volume button down while pressing the power button. I got the tiny text and the two icons. I read the instruction on how to do a wipe, it's very specific and you have to confirm you want to do this. It then wiped all my data and did a cold boot.
When my home screen came back, there was no screen tearing or flickering. I changed
the background and added some widgets to the home screen and brought up the quick menu, but still no screen tearing or flickering
I had to input my Google account and everything else. For some reason, my Google Play Store account doesn't automatically download every one of my apps. So I have been selectively downloading and installing each app and widget. So far, so good. No screen problems.
I took snapshots of my previous screens so I can re-build them from scratch but this time I'll only put one icon or widget on each screen at a time and test for tearing or flickering.
Crossing my fingers that I got this fixed.

Touchscreen issues

Hey guys,
I got my Redmi note 2 yesterday and I'm having trouble with the touchscreen. sometimes it seems to be perfectly fine and sometimes it doesn't react properly. It seems to be worse in the right half of the screen. Sometimes I start scrolling and it works fine in the beginning, then the screen stops detecting my finger and when it detects it again, it opens the thing that my finger is on instead of scrolling.
I'm not sure if this is a hardware of a software bug.
Would calibrating the screen help? If so, whats the best way to do that?
I would usually try flashing a clean stock rom (the one it came with has some bloatware anyway) and test if that resolves the issue, but that's probably not the best idea if I decide to return it.
thanks for your help
alkoy said:
Hey guys,
I got my Redmi note 2 yesterday and I'm having trouble with the touchscreen. sometimes it seems to be perfectly fine and sometimes it doesn't react properly. It seems to be worse in the right half of the screen. Sometimes I start scrolling and it works fine in the beginning, then the screen stops detecting my finger and when it detects it again, it opens the thing that my finger is on instead of scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try entering in the MTK Eng. Mode, then go to Hardware Testing->TouchScreen->HandWriting and try drawing some lines crossing the point where the problem occurs.
A friend of mine had a Nexus 5 with a malfunctioning touchscreen, doing a similar test we noticed that there was a full horizontal line where the touch were not detected so every vertical line we were trying to draw were broken on the point where the bad line were crossed.
Obviously in that case it was an hw fault.
EDIT:
Reading your post again, it seems a behavior caused by lag, so maybe it's a sw problem and not an hw one, especially for the fact that "it opens things instead of scrolling".
Does it always happen in the same point/area? Or is it totally random?
gnazio said:
Try entering in the MTK Eng. Mode, then go to Hardware Testing->TouchScreen->HandWriting and try drawing some lines crossing the point where the problem occurs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already did that and the results are very inconsitent. When I first tried it, it started drawing a line as it should, then it stopped and started again half a centimeter later, then it stopped again, and it pretty much went like that from top to bottom of the screen (at least on the right side of the screen, the left side worked better).
When I did the same test again, it didn't even draw lines, it just highlighted a few single pixels along the way that my finger was traveling.
And currently everything works perfect and smooth as it should.
It does kind of feel like a software-thing, but in my mind (correct me if I'm wrong) that should affect the complete screen equally and it just doesn't. I tried pulling down the notification bar earlier, from the top right of the screen and it just didn't work. I did a few tries and nothing happened. Then I tried pulling it down from the top left and it worked fine.
As I said it works fine at the moment, but I guess I'll make a few screenshots and a video of the problem, when it occurs again.
Ok, so the problem came back and I was able to do some more testing and make a video (sorry about the shabby quality, but it'll have to do ).
youtube . com / watch?v=rKsponNr9lA
As it turns out, the whole screen is affected equally, so I'm pretty confident that it's just the software but I'd still like to hear a second opinion.
The thing that kinda throws me off is that the reboot didn't help at all...
So what do you think? Is it just buggy software?
I'd try contacting the seller and explaining him the problem.
Maybe he will ask you to flash a new rom to be sure that it's a hardware problem and not something that could be solved without a replacement. That's what happened with my first phone from China.
If not, you could ask him and I think he will authorize you.
gnazio said:
I'd try contacting the seller and explaining him the problem.
Maybe he will ask you to flash a new rom to be sure that it's a hardware problem and not something that could be solved without a replacement. That's what happened with my first phone from China.
If not, you could ask him and I think he will authorize you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a good idea, I'll do that.

Desperately needing help. unresponsive part of screen

So I bought a battery for my Mido and followed videos on youtube on replacing it. It all seemed to go well until I started to use my phone. The middle part of my screen doesn't register touches. I was able to install a touch screen test app and you can see that nothing is registering in the middle. Any Ideas? I've attached the screen shot.
prisoner1969 said:
So I bought a battery for my Mido and followed videos on youtube on replacing it. It all seemed to go well until I started to use my phone. The middle part of my screen doesn't register touches. I was able to install a touch screen test app and you can see that nothing is registering in the middle. Any Ideas? I've attached the screen shot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's software problem.If you have twrp installed check if the problem appear there too.If not then maybe it's indeed a software glitch.Then maybe you can try a factory reset or clean installation of the rom.
If that doesn't work maybe you can try reconnect the cables you had to disconnect during the battery change process and putting back the previous battery.Not an expert just some logical thoughts.
T3sla said:
Maybe it's software problem.If you have twrp installed check if the problem appear there too.If not then maybe it's indeed a software glitch.Then maybe you can try a factory reset or clean installation of the rom.
If that doesn't work maybe you can try reconnect the cables you had to disconnect during the battery change process and putting back the previous battery.Not an expert just some logical thoughts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll test twrp in the morning. Doubt it'll be that. The only connectors I detached were the finger print sensor and battery. I hate prying my phone open. Was such a pain the first time. I'll have to open it up to see if maybe I knocked some other connection loose at all.
I am facing this exact same problem. Pretty much a vertical strip of screen on the right hand side of the screen is unresponsive for me. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/8Uqn2lp_d.jpg
I took the phone to the service center, while I had warranty. They pretty much said to my face that this kind of problem can pop up when you've dropped the screen too much and that I need to get the screen replaced to fix it.

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