CF-29 touchscreen not working

OK so i picked up a CF-29ETKCWKM just now. It says the touch screen is not working. I don't know why but they say it is not.


What could cause the touchscreen to not sense touch? I figured the wrong drivers but i think they are smart enough to know to try that. What else would cause the screen to not recognize touch but everything else works normal.

I am super excited about picking this up. It has built in GPS, is wireless ready and has bluetooth according to the model number. I am a little upset that i have to go from 1.5g of ram to 1.256g but i probably wont notice the difference anyway.


If it comes down to it I will swap my touchscreen over to that one if i need too. Also is that a huge job?


Thanks for your guys help. I am a toughbook addict now


-James

 

James ,
Wow, it looks like your new 29 has every desirable option.
The first place to look for touchscreen issues is in the bios.
Look for touchsceen enable/disable there.
Next step reload drivers.

Alex

 

James, that's a nice Toughbook... Make sure u get the emissive BL keyboard and the multimedia battery to sum it all up ... I would just reload the touchscreen drivers and not mess with anything else.

Good Luck

 

the 29,18, and a few other models touchscreens have an issue where it will go erratic or just stop working and the only fix is a new ts,

 

As soon as I get it I will look into the drivers and bios to see if i can get the touchscreen working.

Do the touch screens have a history of going bad. The TB looks like it is in good shape so i doubt it was abused so the touch screen wouldn't work.

I really hope it is just drivers or the bios. That would be awesome. If not I have to have a touch screen so screen swapping would have to be done or the touchscreen would have to be repaired.

Ya all the options are almost there I am super excited about it. I will install my 100gb hdd, 1gb of memory, my dvd/rw drive, card reader and new battery. After that all i need is a media bay battery and that super hard to find emissive backlit keyboard.

Thanks for the info guys.

-James

 

Really what is the cost of a new touch screen. Only the touch part as the rest of it is working great.

I looked at the parts breakdown to see if i could find just the touch screen part # but didn't have any luck.


-James

 

There is a pcb located behind the lcd that the touchscreen panel hooks into on one side with a small circuit on it.
Could that be defective?

 

I guess someone finally bought that $599 CF-29 off eBay, eh? ... I asked about the TS and they said they tried the drivers already and it's not (since the other ones work) so this one is a tech special.

-Phil

 

there is a pcb yes, it rarely goes out atleast on the 29s, any issue that ive had with touchscreens that i thought was that pcb has been the ts itself.

 

Well I picked up a touchscreen for it since that is probably what is. It does not come with the actual screen just the touch part. I hope i can just fix it without having to change the screen but i have one just in case. It has a few blemishes when off but they say it is not noticeable when on. I hope it is in good condition.

Since they were selling other models with the TS working i imagine that the screens are actually bad.

-James

 

How hard is it to change these screens? I would actually have to crack the lid open and change out everything.

You think I am in over my head.


-James

 

their not that hard to change if you take your time, use the proper tools (meaning go out and buy them if you don't have a good small screwdriver kit), and be sure to note witch screws go where as to not put them back in the wrong holes.... I've swapped tons of CF-29 screens and I've never had and issue doing so.

 

Thanks. I hope it all goes well.

I picked up a emmisive backlit keyboard just now from a cf-28 it looks to be in pretty good shape. I stole it for $69.95 free shipping. I could not believe it when i saw it so i hit BIN in like 5 seconds. I have been watching for one and they always sell for around $200 which was just too much to spend on a keyboard.

Well the touch screen is on it's way and i hope the cf-29 is as well. I will look for my set of small screw drivers and if I cant find them well then it looks like it is time for a new set.

You know JB007Rules I never really read your name and thought about it but i did today and yes he does

So are you looking forward to Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig?

I kinda like Daniel Craig as JB he seems more i dunno real. I love all the JB films cant wait for the new one.

-James

 

LOL, yea that's exactly what it is... I invented this screen name about 12 years ago when I was a huge James Bond fanatic (not that I'm not now, I just work 65 hours a week lol), but back then I had more time as a kid. Anyways it kinda just stuck and if you ever see JB007Rules on the internet floating around (theirs about 10 other areas where you will find me (especially on Howardforums.com)) or on Google, then that's me lol... the internet is a small world! . I haven't deviated from this SN EVER lol.

BTW, I don't like Daniel Craig :/... he's.... just ... not... bond... . But I will obviously still see it the day it comes out, like I have since I first started watching in 1995 with Goldeneye

 

Well Daniel Craig is ok i think he will be a good bond. It will just take time to get used to him.

I liked that he felt pain and was almost normal and not perfect. When he chased people they could almost get away and he struggled to keep up. I did not like it how he had nothing bond like tho.

I mean where were all the cool bond gadgets?

I loved all the Pierce Brosnan movies. When he was bond i loved it and was sad to see him go but it was time for a new bond i guess.

-James

 

Oh ya what sierra WWAN card do you have? I noticed in the picture it showed MC????. I though it read MC5725 but i cant make out the numbers.

 

lemme check.....

 

CRAP, I can't check right now because I have the little switch on the front turned off and the laptop is at home (I'm remoted into it through my VPN )... I'll get back to you on that.

 

Ok got my touchscreen in the mail today. Looks to be in pretty good shape maybe only 1 or 2 small scratches. Cant complain for $50 it was a steal for a working touchscreen. Now it has a screen protector on it but it is kinda scratched up.

I was thinking about getting a new one from ebay and read that toughbook recommended ScreenPatronous on ebay.

Are the ones on ebay as good as the original one? I would like to get an original but they are like $80 bucks.

-James

 

The stock protectors are a little thicker but screen patronous sells the reuseable/washable sticky-backed cling type.

Make SURE that you are careful when pulling out the old screen and installing the new one. Those thin ribbon cables don't take much to tear!

 

Thanks for the heads up on the cables i really hope all goes well in the swap. I will be very careful but i have never done it before so i hope i dont screw it up.

So stock vs the ebay one which would you get toughbook? I mean are the non stock ones good enough? Do they scratch easy? Or slide around after time?

 

OK Update!!!! My new TB came in today and i have swapped over my HDD, DVD R/W drive, Batt, WLAN card and memory along with installing my new emmisive backlit keyboard.

Next for me to tackle was the touch screen cuz it was not working. Well after tearing the whole thing apart (**** it is alot of screws) and swapping out the ts for another i put it all back together and boot up. OMG it is still not working i was like holy crap this sucks.

So next i got the idea of swapping out the little PC board that the touch screen connects to from my other TB so i take is all apart again swap back the screen that was on there originally and then put in the pc board from the other TB i boot back up and wham it is working perfect.

So as i am writing this i am putting my old tb back together. Now when i looked at the little TS pcb it has some sort of goo on it so i wiped it off and then installed it into my old tb and then i just booted it up and the TS WORKS !!! what are the odds of that


Oh ya the model i bought from ebay was supposed to be a CF-29ETKCWKM but i was sent a CF-29ETKCSKM. I was originally a CF-29ETKCWKM but it has been upgraded with a verizon CDMA card and they put a new model number sticker over the original model number and added a esn sticker to it.

I honestly cannot believe this laptop was used. Literally there is not one scratch on it. I swear the company that used it must have only used it twice and then sold it. It honestly looks brand new out of the box.

I have not found a problem or a scratch yet. So far it is working great and looks great.

The only problem that I am having now is that the OEM gps is not giving me a correct reading on the WinFast Navigator. I know the GPS is com port 3 and it is on auto in the bios. When i load up winfast it starts reading data from com3 but never picks up any satellites. Any idea's on why that is?


-James

 

What is the baud rate set at? Sometimes mine will try to default to 19200, but it needs to be at 4800 for it to work. Check that and let us know.

Paul

 

OK well i installed my Bluetooth software and now i have lost com3 in the winfast selection. I keep messing with the BT software and i seem to be able to get com3 back but then after a restart i lose com3 again.

Is there anyway i can switch it to a diff port in the bios?

 

Ok i got com3 back after deleting the bluetooth com3 in the device manager.

Now when i load up winfast i can select com3 and baud rate as 4800 and the deployment data starts running but it never picks up a satellite.

The numbers in data deployment seem to just repeat themselves constantly and that is all. The data light blinks but thats all.

 

James ,

I must be physic.

The pcb connections might have been loose or a cold solder connection that fixed itself when you removed it.
The Bluetooth com port settings can be permanently changed in the Bluetooth manager on the taskbar .

Alex

 

I got the bluetooth com port taken care of but for some reason i cannot get the gps to work right. It streams data but never gets a satt signal and the data seems all wrong.

 

Ya it was a bad connection or it was the goop i wiped off of it. I think the goop was shorting it out cuz as soon as i removed it and cleaned it all was working again. Now i have both touch screens working and got a killer deal on this TB.

 

Can you see the data sentences?
Do they they start with 3 letters?
Or are they garbled ?

Alex

 

Well i messed with the com setting for like the last hour going between bluetooth the bios and device manager and all of the sudden it just started working. I dunno it is crazy sometimes. Thanks for the help though

Now i just have to get a rev.0 or rev.A sprint card to replace my CDMA verizon one i have in here now.

If anyone has an old sled with a rev.0 card let me know. I would only need the card and not the whole sled as mine already has a card i just need to swap it out.

Anybody know if that is possible? According to my model number i have a CDMA verizon wwan card that is 1xRtt i would imagine. Can i just use a different card on my existing sled since i have all the cabling etc.


-James

 

no, evdo modems connect differently to the sleds and require a different set of pcbs on the sled, you can get the evdo sled kit from heartland.

 

Well, I have an EVDO sled with an SB555... haven't figured out which carrier it is yet. That being said... all the sled connectors look the same - has anyone tried (or KNOW) if I can swap this SB555 sled with a miniPCIe sled for a Rev. A card? This is for a CF-29 mk4.

 

Well i know that the antenna connector is different on the mini-pci cards than the sb555 modem and the pcb that holds the sb555 is obviously different as well.

Now I have a question what kind of modem is on the CDMA verizon sled that i have? Can i put a sb555 in there since it is the same antenna connector?

I know mini pci will take a lot more work since the pc boards are different but i would be happy just to change over from 1xRtt to EVDO rev.0

Whatever i do i have GPS on my sled so that has to stay on there.

-James

 

new to the forums area. not sure if this is the right place to be for posting a question, but here goes.

have a cf29 that I just purchased on ebay. computer was scrubbed and then appropriate drivers and software reloaded. was sold as "grade a".

only two issues arose. the hotkeys didn't work, and the touchscreen is funky/not working. turns out that the driver for the hotkey wasn't loaded. found it and loaded it-works like a charm.

thought that the same issue existed for the touchscreen too. the touchscreen worked kind of-maybe two or three times. was real cool. now, the feature doesn't work right.

when I touch the screen, the cursor shoots over to the extreme right side of the screen, off screen, and that's it. using the touchpad, I can bring it back and that function works fine. as soon as I touch the screen again, the cursor shoots off screen again.

tried downloading an updated driver, but not sure if it is taking. under the device manager, drivers list, nothing seems different with respect to driver information.

anyone out there able to give me some pointers?

 

that would be a defective touch screen,

 

thank you for the input. not to sound as though I am questioning your knowledge, but how do you know?

 

Well on my CF-29 the cursor would stay at the bottom of the screen but it would know horizontal movement just vertical movement was not recognized for some reason. I found out that i had a bad connection or some goo on the touchscreen board. After i cleaned it off everything was working great.

Now since yours worked a few times then just stopped it might be a bad screen. We use itronix gobook's at work and i had one that did that same thing with the touchscreen and it ended up being a bad touchscreen.

Good luck in figuring it out.

-James

 

The touchSreen driver is not listed separately, in the Devise Manager.
It is listed under Mice and other pointing devices.
It should say something like touchpad/touchscreen.
In Control Panel, Click on Mouse.
If the drivers are installed correctly ,you should see a TouchScreen tab
Try the Calibration & Test


Alex

 

I have gone through the control panel, and done the calibration set. once or twice (maybe), it worked fine. now, when I do the calibration, the X points recognize my touch (i.e. the red X moves through it's nine points). when it is completed, and I hit enter, and error pops up saying "parameter error". in fact, it just happened when I did it just before typing this message. believe it or not, I just went back again to do the calibration in order to confirm the message, AND THE TOUCHSCREEN WORKS!!!!!!!! at least for now. I would imagine that it will stop again, so any input would be great-I am not confident that it will continue working. thanks!!!!! phil

 

That is the exact thing that happen to me. The red points would all move and it knew i was touching the screen but would give an error at the end because it knew that it had been calibrated wrong. I would pop open the lid and take out the touchscreen board clean it off then re-install it and see if that works for you. After i took mine out and cleane it off and re-installed it now the touchscreen works great and i have not had a single issue since.

It might be worth a shot before you buy a new touchscreen PCB or touchscreen.


-James

 

thanks for your help and suggestion zippy man. so far, it's still working.

pao423

 

Have you got the new 29 yet and have you found out the problem. I have one on the way myself.

 

Yes i have the new cf-29. read over this thread it will explain what happend.


-James

 

I had just read the first page. I am so excited after hearing what you got. I hope it is not a let down. I would love to transfer my Verizon WWAN to this unit. I have a PCMCIA card now but I do not want that sticking out of the 29 and would love the antenna being up where it is not inside the unit like it will be with the card. I just looked the tracking up and mine is due Wed. I bought mine 3 days after yours. Mine got held up for some reason.

 

Well hopefully you can get the touchscreen working like i did without having to buy any more parts. You will need to get a verizon sled for internal WWAN. I got really lucky that mine came with a verizon card installed in it. It was not supposed to come with it. I am not sure how many they have that have the WWAN card installed as per the model number they listed they are just wireless ready. Mine was different. Also the verizon card that i got is old (1xrtt) which is just too slow. You can get a evdo Rev.0 or Rev. A card of ebay and put that in the cf-29 and just change your esn number at verizion. I know a guy on ebay that has a verizon rev.0 card for sale if you are interested i will give you his email.

Rev.0 is 400-700kbps and Rev. A is like 500-1000kbps. I am not sure what rev card you have now but it may be a rev.0 anyway.

Hopefully yours is in as good of condition as mine. I swear when i opened the box i thought they sent me a brand new CF-29 as I do not think there is even one scratch on this thing. It looks brand new out of the box.

Good luck with your new TB. If you have any questions this is the place to be.

-James