CF-18 Touchscreen Issue

Okay... So I get this almost perfect CF-18 today from an ebay seller. Great guy! The thing was perfect when I opened it up. Rubber keyboard and all... I like it so much that it will (was to be?) my personal "Travel Laptop" plus my Linux learning platform... If I keep that crap up!

Anyway... The whole point of the post is that when I received the CF-18... It as working fine and was in beautiful condition. The first thing I did was to calibrate the touchscreen. As you all know... The touchscreen calibration is 9 cross-hairs that you must touch in the center and then it moves to the next position. When you finish... You hit Enter and your screen is calibrated. Well... I got through the first 8 cross-hairs and couldn't get the 9th one to register... It just wouldn't take the input. So I exited out, rebooted and NOTHING!

I have tried uninstalling the driver and rebooting. Removing the battery, etc. I've tried swapping hard drives... (So it is NOT a software issue as best I can tell.)

Any KNOWN ideas? Any Toughbook People who know what's going on here? Any Toughbook People that have an educated guess? This CF-18 is in almost new condition and I really do NOT want to have to ship it back to the seller if I can find the issue.

Any Toughbook People want to hazard a guess?

 

You mean nothing, as in it won't boot, or nothing, as in touchscreen won't respond at all?

mnem
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose...

 

Sorry... Nothing as in... The touchpad works... But the touchSCREEN suddenly went dead.

I have gotten them before when one works and the other doesn't... It is almost always a hardware issue... But this worked. I was on the NINTH calibration cross-hair for cripe's sake! I've never had one crap out on me in mid-calibration! This is too weird.

Kind alike your ________ stopping in the middle of _________... Wouldn't THAT be weird!?

 

So Rick...Does the touchscreen still show up in bios or device manager?
Kinda sounds like the connector fell off the circuit board inside the lcd panel.
They don't use a separate fuse for that board, do they?

When I first got one of my 29's, I had no touchscreen till I cleaned the edge.

 

Yes... It shows up in the BIOS and is enabled there... Everything is as it should be to have ti work... Just as if you received a perfectly good laptop... But then it just stopped working in the 8th calibration point. Everything stills shows... I've tried reloading the driver, etc... It's all there and it shows as working... It just doesn't....

I doubt it is a fuse but may pop it open for a look-see. But I'll wait for anyone who may know for sure... It there is one...

(Paging Dr. Ohlip!)

 

HOLY &%@#*&%!!!

I just disassembled the LCD and everything required to split out the connector between the LCD and the motherboard.... I have to type now just to limber up my fingers. WOW! This thing is tight and compact. I figure there must be a frayed wired where the screen pivots so I took out the entire connector. I'll report my findings later. But good gosh... What a tight little bundle. This is NOT for the faint of heart! Just splitting the wires between the touchscreen and the LCD took me twenty minutes as I want to reuse everything once I find the issue. I'm getting ready to set each of the 10 or so connections for the touchscreen to check continuity. I'm HOPING to find a bad wire... Then it is an easy splice and back together it goes.

I'll let you guys know...

 

Hey! Rick , first check the circuit line that attached to the panel itself it maybe not enough contact or something else to the glass itself. The area where the calibration point fail on a x,y access. Also the cable ribbon that attach to the pcb board, need a clean up.


teo

 

DUH... Teo... After all that.. It turned out that it was a slightly loose touchscreen connector coming from the touchscreen itself where it plugs into the back of the LCD... I guess I should have started with the simplest thing first...

 

I'm gunna keep quite...

Glad it was almost easy

 

D'OH!

Looks like TB has been hangin' around the dwagon too long... startin' with the hard stuff first is MY schtick...

mnem
The road less traveled... is usually less traveled because it SUCKS.