x61 tablet pen stops responding

I purchased a used x61 tablet and it has been functional for the past 5 months. I noticed however a month ago after installing Windows 8.1 ( from 8) that the pen would stop responding, I initially thought it was just a 8.1 problem, but on reverting to Windows 7, the problem still persists.

What I do find odd however, is that when I restart the machine, the pen is once again functional, and this is also the case if i resume from sleep.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what could be going on? Or do you think the hardware is failing?

when i installed 8.1 the wifi would also intermittently stop working or fail to work on resume, and the machine either had to be restarted, or the device disabled & re-enabled or sometimes, uninstalled from device manager and reinstalled to regain functionality.

When resuming from sleep (re the wifi) it would initially appear to reconnect to the wireless network, but then be unable to connect.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

I'm pretty certain that it's not the hardware that's failing. Booting a "live" Linux CD/USB such as Mint would point towards the issue one way or another.

Have you ran the System Update recently?

Sounds to me like an Intel wireless card...and if I'm correct, there are much better options out there if you don't mind running a modded (Middleton's) BIOS...

 

yup its an Intel card...I have a mint usb stick trying to remember of the digitizer worked natively in it, will try & post results after.

Thanks for the response!

I actually have another x61 that failed to boot after attempting to repair the fan error, that i could try the atheros card from, just not really anxious to go tinkering inside the machine.


UPDATE: Stops in Linux Mint too....so that makes it hardware failure? *sigh*

NB. There isn't much in the way of drivers on Software Update

 

That is odd.

I've gone through more than my fair share of X6* tablets and don't recall any of them exhibiting such symptoms.

My hunch is that the problem is within the realm of power management and/or graphic driver, but would have no clue on how to prove it...

If you set the machine not to sleep, leave it on for 3-4 hours and then come back to it, is the pen working?

 

yes the pen will work after hours of up time , it's entirely intermittent...

I've never turned on the machine and had the pen not function. Even if i've been using it as a laptop all day, pen always works when it first interacts with the screen, and then it will stop...

Noticed under the power settings that the screen is currently set to turn off after 10 & 15 minutes on battery and plugged respectively. Going to try changing those settings to never and see what occurs...

UPDATE: Well that experiment went nowhere, still turned off...

 

It does sound like a buggy driver. A wacom-related disaster in both Windows and Linux is a rather unusual scenario - but not an impossible one...

I have a X61T that I'm about to start setting up for its new owner in a day or two. Let me see if I can get it to behave in the manner you're describing and I'll post back...

Stay tuned and good luck.

 

Thanks for taking the time to try to help, it's much appreciated

 

I've decided the issue has to be hardware
it occurs in every OS i've tried...
and as a final attempt I installed Vista (which is what came w/ my original X61) and the problem still persisted before i installed any additional drivers.

In an attempt to resume from sleep to get the digitizer functional again, I closed the lid, but the machine never went to sleep...on reopening the lid, again functional