CF-18 Question about Touchscreen Calibration.

Hi All, I haven't been around here for years, I know, I'm sorry but other things have been in the way, anyway I'm in need of some help, please....:hi2:

I've purchased 4 CF-18's (CF-18KHH64BE off of Fleabay here in the UK) advertised as working apart from the touchscreen, I managed to get 2 to calibrate, then I updated the O/S (XP Pro) and the Touchscreen stopped working.

I've been to Panasonic's web site and downloaded all the drivers and tried reinstalling them, the touchpad/mouse works but when I try to calibrate the screen the problem appears.

I can open the calibration utility and start the calibration, a red cross appears (top left), when I touch it a line appear and leads me to the next cross (top centre) and so on until all 9 crosses have been touched, then I push "Enter" to finish the Calibration, but a blue edged box appears which states: error Dtm....Parameter Error. Please input, again. OK.


I have tried several times to re-enter the calibration and then "Enter" to finish.

Being as the touchscreen changes over to the next "calibration point" it appears to be working but won't complete calibration.

Does anybody have any idea what might be the problem, driver conflict or something I'm missing.

Just tried calibrating another one again and now it wont move on to the second red cross.....

I'm beating my head against a wall here, please help me....



zzr1200

PS. Does anyone have a factory restore disc for these machines just in case I have to format the drives....

And does anybody know who "64" is???

 

That means your touchscreen is dead or almost dead....sorry
Who "64" is...never heard of it.

 

Yep sounds like dying/dead touch panels. You can replace them with new aftermarket panels, somewhat easier on CF-18 than other models. Or you might try contacting member Sadlmkr (Jeff) who is skilled at fixing touchscreens.

 

CF-18KHH64BE mk4 September, 2005
Europe
PM753 (1.2G ULV)
60GB
512MB
Touchscreen..
WLAN abg
WWAN EDGE (WEW18005)
Bluetooth (WBT182)
Keyboard UK
Notebook XPP (English)
British Telecom (UK) 64 indicates who it was made for
Silver Latch, Special BIOS, Ext.combo drive attached in a pkg.

 

So the touchscreen is possibly on its last legs, ok.

But why then do I get an instance response when I touch the red cross and the next cross appears, if the touch sensitive part of the screen is on its last legs surely its wouldn't react to touch, its only the final part of the calibration setting that fails, which makes it seem more of a software glitch than a screen failure???

That explains why some people have found BT Sim Cards in the slot.

 

Trust us...The touchscreen panel is going bad....We've done this before..

The resistance changes and the panel stills knows that you touched it, but it's not sure WHERE you touched it..

 

Now that makes sense, see, all I wanted was an explanation.

Now a really silly question, how much for another screen, apart from lots....

 

I sent Sadlmkr a PM...He'll contact you...

 

Did you do a power pull re-set of the motherboard?

1. Pull battery.
2. Dis-connect power supply.
3. Hold switch on for 20 seconds...repeat several times.
4. Plug in power supply. (not the battery yet)
5. [F2] [F9] [F10] (boot to bios, set to defaults, save)

I'm suspicious of your drivers since you get results as you described. Majority of the time when you have a bad panel the cursor will disappear. Down and right a lot of the time.

Do you have a live linux disk that you can try?

This should be your touchscreen driver:
Official Support Download Center of the Drivers, Manuals and FAQs | TOUGHBOOK | TOUGHPAD | Panasonic Global Notebook PC

Jeff

EDIT: You should contact Rob for a restore cd. Here or toughbooktalk.com (I think he can download them)
For touch panels techtuff is your guy....if he ships overseas. This freshens the look up. END EDIT

 

I haven't tried a power reset (I didn't know about about this trick), the driver you linked to is the one I've already installed (for the mouse/touchscreen), I've read one of "Toughbooks" posts, there's a mention of a ridge set order to install the drivers, listed in a thread on here somewhere but I've not found it.

I've looked on the Panasonic site and downloaded the drivers for a CF18K but there's still more than one driver for the WLAN listed which appears to be the starting point for driver loading order.

I have tried following Panasonic's driver install list but with more than one driver listed for some items and being as I'm not totally sure which drivers are needed (depending on the hardware installed), thats another driver glitch in the making possibly...

I don't have a live linux disc, I tried linux/ubuntu years ago and didn't understand it, so went back to XP Pro.

I have a set of restore disc's on there way, I've also added three photo's of said CF18 just in case it helps id any drivers needed or hardware installed, this one has 4500 hrs on the bios clock and a new oem charger, for 100 usd delivered its worth a bit of time.

I will try the power reset trick tonight, thank for the info.

At the moment everything appears to be working apart from the the touchscreen final calibration setting/store, so I can't be that far out, (hopefully).

I'II report back later on progress...

 

While you are waiting for your original recovery disks, if you'd like to test out all your hardware (and try a really cool operating system), download unetbootin here:
UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads
This will allow you to make a bootable usb stick download of an iso such as mint/etc., let it save to download folder (or wherever)
Then go to this download site: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" - Xfce (32-bit) - Linux Mint
Download the iso for mint 32 bit xfce and let it save to download folder (or wherever).
Now, run the unetbootin program, and follow the prompts. You will choose the iso you downloaded, and put it on a usb stick.
Then, power off your toughbook, then back on, booting from usb stick, you can run it as a live disk, and/or install it and try it also.
It's easy to use and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Best regards, Cleve

 

Its a very common issue! Your TS panel is on its last leg, its failing and what ever you do with respect to the software it will not fix it. Maybe it will work occasionally but the symptoms is there.


ohlip

 

Well I've tried the power reset trick hasn't made any difference, so I bow to the masses greater knowledge and accept that the touchscreen is fubar-ed, the CF18's bios clock has 4500 hrs on it, my CF30 mk1 has 14400+ hrs and I've never had a problem with the touchscreen.

Hmmm, how much for a replacement touchscreens....

 

contact board member techtuff. he has panels

 

He also is a seller on ebay techtuff | eBay but I see none for sale, If you get no reply on here then send a message on ebay.

 

Hi guys, I'm very sorry to dig up this thread, but I had to give my input. I just got a CF-18F in the other day. Just installed XPPRO SP3 on it today. Was having trouble with calibration. Tried calibrating by going to C:\util2\drivers\mouse and running the calibration app... I was getting the dtm error. Was reading forums and everything about to throw the thing against a wall (too bad it would survive.....ha......ha.) Then I right clicked on the mouse driver in the system tray, clicked calibration, and decided to try pressing and holding on the red cross for a second before releasing...they started moving after I released....did it 9 times, pressed enter, and it works. This probably won't work for you and I may just be an idiot for not knowing how to calibrate right the first time, but it solved my problem so I figured I'd add it here.

 

Welcome to the Panasonic Toughbook forum

That's the same way I do it. Take you time and don't rush it but some times it don't help...it's just dead

 

Your problem is almost certainly a faulty touchscreen panel. The fact that you touch the red crosses and the calibration process moves onto the next one means your computer knows you've touched the screen. It just doesn't know where you've touched it because the panel is at fault.

I had exactly the same problem with mine. I bought a non-OEM touchscreen panel from eBay for £29.99. It arrived from China within a week and it took me about an hour to install.It's not as difficult a job as it seems. There is a video on YouTube showing how it's done. After fitting mine has worked perfectly ever since.

Hope it helps.