CF-18 Display Issue

New to this forum which has already helped me with another problem.
I got my start on a TRS80 Model 1...things have changed a little.
Down to biz:

We have had a CF-18 MK5 since 2005 and USB ports are worn out, but everything else works great.
I installed a CardBus to USB adapter and we have used that for about 6 months but it seems hit or miss, so I bought a CF-18 MK4 off the web and made a clean XP Pro SP3 install.
Everything worked except the touchscreen which worked for a few seconds and then stopped.
I found a post that says how finicky they can be about the order in which the drivers get reinstalled, so I redid another clean install of the OS and drivers in order with reboots and the touchscreen worked...till it went to sleep.
When I woke it back up, touching the screen would move the pointer to the bottom of the screen, but no higher.
I cleaned it, warm-booted, cold-booted, overnight cold-booted, changed resolution from 1024x768 to 800x600 still nothing different.
Pulled the hard drive out and booted it in the old one with the bad USB ports and the screen works fine, so I am guessing I have the drivers installed properly.
So I am ready to change the display over and just for giggles and grins I release, swivel, and fold the display and turn it back again and all of a sudden it works again!
I am scared to put this thing back into service as is without fixing the root issue with it and am wondering if anyone has run into this problem before.
Maybe someone can shed some light on this and give me something to check.
I certainly would appreciate the help.
:hi2:

 

Sounds like either a bad touchscreen or cable going to it.

 

It is possible that a speck of crud is under the edge of the touchscreen along the bottom. By moving the display you took the pressure off, and it is no longer acting as if it was being touched. On gps units with touchscreen flakiness it is common to try blowing along the screen edges with compressed air to remove accumulated crud. I'm referring to tractor gps units, where there is dust and stuff that accumulates over time and usage.

 

I agree with Shawn...it could be the cable but it would not hurt to clean around the screen too, you just might get lucky. Before you decide to change the screen check all the cables...you just might find a loose one.

 

I saw a post on how to change the display and that looked relatively easy (dispite having to choke down 2 Coors ), I don't know how hard it would be to get at the cables at the lower unit. I am wondering if anyone has run into mostly top-half or bottom-half being a problem. Maybe I should just check both and be done with it, but with out nice pics/instructions I am a little reluctant to tear into the lower half.
I have blown it out about a dozen times even though it was delivered to me in like-new condition.
It worked all day today without a problem, maybe I'll just put it into service, cross my fingers, and not worry about it again until it's broke all the time again.
.
After reading some of these other posts I am thinking of taking the "now-scrap" unit with the bad USB ports and throwing a little SSD in it and seeing what that thing will do....It is a MK5.

 

It's really easy to get to the cables on it...cables are under the keyboard. If the keyboard has never been removed before then it will have some double face tape on it but just take you time. Once off you will see a small silver plate/door (4-5 screws) wires are under that.

 

Thank You All for the tips.
It's still working fine, but I know that it'll stop eventually. When It does, the first thing I will try is the cables.

 

If you continue to have problems, you might try loading from a recovery disk... If non responsive after that... (As Huey Lewis said) Sometimes bad is bad!