Surface Pro 7 pen pressure issues with palm rejection

Anonymous
2019-11-01T19:50:11+00:00

Pen works fine when only the pen is making contact with the screen. However, when my palm is resting on the screen, the pressure detection of the pen becomes extremely inaccurate. As soon as skin (palm, fingers, etc) makes contact with the screen, the pressure curve of the pen becomes a staircase, as if the pen could only detect 5-20 levels of pressure, instead of 4096 like it's supposed to. Here's a screenshot from the Surface app:![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/cdc3b0c5-bfcc-4409-b0a1-318885287f48?platform=QnAAnd here is how it looks like when drawing:

Is this normal? How can I fix it?

Device: Surface Pro 7 Model 1866 i5 (8GB RAM, 128GB SSD)

OS: Windows 10 Home Version 1903 build 18362.449 (edit: I've since updated to 1909 build 18363.628, issue persists)

Pen: Microsoft Surface Pen Model 1776 (Burgundy) 

I have:

  • paired my pen
  • unpaired and repaired the pen via Bluetooth options
  • rebooted the Surface Pro
  • soft reset the Surface Pro (volume+ and power buttons down for 15 seconds)
  • removed and reinserted the battery into the pen (only way I could think of turning it off and on again)
  • checked Windows Updates
  • checked for app updates via Windows Store
  • run the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit, no problems detected
  • tried with and without Settings → Devices → Pen & Windows Ink → Ignore touch input when I'm using my pen
  • set the correct hand I'm using from pen settings
  • tried in multiple different apps, including Surface app, Adobe Photoshop, Krita, Sketchable, Autodesk SketchBook and others — same problem everywhere
  • tried calibrating the pen (search "calibrate" from start menu and choose pen calibration), a dialog opens after choosing "Calibrate..." → "Pen input", asks for permission, and just makes a sound and closes after I grant permission, so I'm not sure if it's not working correctly, but nothing changed either way — tried to do this multiple times, rebooting in between, but doesn't seem to do anything
Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-11-02T02:14:41+00:00

    Hello ,

    Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Community. Can you try the methods below and see if there are changes.

    **Method 1:**Run Windows Updates or SDT, and test on known app.

    • Run Surface DiagnosticToolkit. It is a self-healing tool which looks for potential issues and fixes them, as well as ensures your device is completely up to date.

    Method 2: Uninstall all Surface pen driver and touch drivers (including hidden drivers/devices) :

    • Go to Device manager
    • in device manager, click on Human Interface Devices
    • Make sure you show all hidden devices under HID

    Uninstall all drivers and devices that related to touch and pen like including those that are hidden; HID-compliant touchscreen HID compliant Pen, Intel Precise touch driver, Surface Pen settings and restart your Surface to reinstall the drivers automatically with the updated one.

    Please keep us posted.

    Regards,                                                                                                                 

    KarenJune_F

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-11-02T07:46:38+00:00

    Thanks for your reply! I ran the Diagnostic Tool again now just to be sure. Just like before, it didn't find anything.

    From Device Manager, I uninstalled almost all HID devices just to be sure, not just ones that said touch/pen/ink. It started adding them back after I had uninstalled almost everything. I rebooted. The problem still persists. 

    Anything else I could try?

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-11-05T16:55:01+00:00

    I really appreciate the efforts. Is this happening both when PSU is plugged in and on battery? To reproduce the issue, can you sit the device on your lap and try to write without accessories connected except for your Surface Pen? If issue persist, try to change the battery with a brand new one. Other way to isolate is test another brand new pen on your Surface or test your Pen on a different Surface.

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-11-05T21:20:59+00:00

    I am also having the same problem and using the exact same pen with my surface pro 6 i'm not getting the same problem. 

    I also use the Tablet Pro pen tool (I'm one of the developers of the app) and the hid events are going wild. you can test with the pen tool, choose settings and custom pen and display hid events. This makes it really clear that something very different is going on with the surface pro 7 and how it reads the pen. 

    I personally own 6 different stylus (5 different brands) and 4 different surface devices (book 2, surface go, sp6 and sp7) the Surface Pro 7 is the only device that has this problem. 

    I can confirm that ALL the stylus are getting the same stepping behavior. tested new surface pen, yobwin, wacom bamboo ink, a second new surface pen (grey and black) and raphael 5 stylus. 

    please feel free to email or contact me directly. ******@tabletpro.com

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-11-05T21:22:16+00:00

    I also should mention that I have owned 5 and tested this on 4 different surface pro 7 devices (2 i5 and 2 i7 models) and all have the same problem.

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