touchscreen error

[sashby11]

I posted this in hardware - but there doesn't seem to be much traffic there.  My apologies for crossposting.  The problem seems worse lately, possibly a progressive hardware failure?

Thanks for any feedback!
Shane


I am having a strange problem with a new SL-5500, and I'm concerned it might be a hardware problem. When I tap the screen at a certain spot, right in the middle of the handwriting area, I get a diagonal line. It is about 75% consistent (about 25% of the time it doesn't happen), it only happens in that general area and the line always stretches off toward the upper left. This creates a line from 3-10 mm that I can see register on the screen.

I'm not sure if this is related, but when I run OZ with Opie, my handwriting recognition is choppy at best (anywhere on the handwriting area), like the Zaurus is not registering the full stroke.

I was using tkRom 2.0 alpha3. I reflashed to "factory standard" using Ospack 3.13 from Sharp. I'm still getting the same problem - but somewhat different. The response is much quicker than before. Also, there seems to be more of a pattern. When I tap very lightly, there are multiple rapid clicks, almost like the tap is barely registered and so picked up as rapid-fire clicking from the "confusion". If I tap more firmly this is much reduced, and only a single click is made.

Since reflashing to 3.13, the area most affected by the problem has shifted significantly from where the problem was occuring before. The shape of the registered stroke is the same - diagonal stretching toward the top left, but it is happening on the right-lower corner of the screen, rather than in the lower-middle like before.

Perhaps this is lessened in Opie by making the touchpad less responsive, as a fix? This is just speculation - but it would explain why the screen is less responsive in OZ/Opie. I don't recall the touchpad errors occurring on Opie (but not certain).

<crossing fingers> Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

BTW - same behavior occurs in ImagePad application, doesn't seem limited to Handwriting.

[captain_emo]

Not sure if this will help you out but I also have an SL-5500 that experiences erratic registering of screen taps from time to time.  I had even gone into a sketchpad screen to see just what it was registering and a tap towards the center of the screen would result in a jagged line off to the right.   And, some parts of the screen would register correctly.

What I learned over time is that this problem was worse when the battery appeared to be low.  Whenever I see this problem arise I just shut down the Z and let is charge for a couple hours, etc.  Most of the time that fixes the problem.

I also have trouble with the touchpad settings application.  Sometimes I end up chasing the darn crosshairs round and round with the Z never seeming to like what I'm trying to do.  I've also found this is at least aggravated by low battery power.

I've since switched to the tkc2A3 rom and I run /home on SD.  So, if the situation gets really nasty I just do a hard reset.  That has always fixed the issue.

Good luck and I'm interested in seeing if others have a better insight into this.