Phantom Touch and Touch Dead Zone on Surface Pro 3

Hi all,

I purchased a Surface Pro 3 (i5, 128 GB) 8 months ago (8/14) and had not any problem with it for 4 months. But one day (after some updates I think) the pen stopped working and I thought the batteries are drained. So I replaced them all (the coin and AAAAs) but the problem was not completely solved, the pen was detected and paired but after some minutes or seconds after windows log in, the pen cursor was disappeared from the screen and I had to restart the device or re-pair the pen to get it working again. Some other problems occurred simultaneously, phantom touch and touch dead zone! After changing the batteries, I saw phantom touches on the screen (approximately always on some specific points in the upper right quarter of the screen but not so annoying). Also I found a dead zone on the touch screen. (This area was a rectangle, parallel to the start menu of the Windows and contained the place of phantom touches and was not touchable by fingers but the pen could work on it).

I contacted the Microsoft Support Team and they asked me to install all updates. After doing that the only change was the appearing of a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark below theSurface Pro Touch Controller Firmware in the device manager. So I contacted them again, and they suggested uninstalling/re-installing the driver, rolling it back, 2-button shutdown and finally a Refresh. The first three options did nothing but fortunately after the refresh and update, the pen issue was solved. I think that the Touch Controller was fixed too, because the yellow triangle was gone. But still the issue of phantom touches existed, so I contacted them again, and this time they suggest a Reset. Yesterday I done the reset and update, but not only the problem was not solved but also has become worse. Previously I could work with the device even it had phantom touches but those were weak and with a lower frequency of occurrence. Now they are occurring with a higher frequency and are more destructive so that I can’t control the device under their attack! They close windows, select and delete Items, vibrate the screen, etc. Even they can trap the mouse cursor in fixed squares such as mouse-traps! Like before they are happening on constant points of the screen. (Mainly on 2 point: one in the top left corner (new) and another in the upper right quarter of the screen (as before)). Unhappily the dead zone of the touch screen has become bigger in comparison with before so that I can’t touch about half of the screen with my fingers and have to handle that with the pen. And the last negative effect of the reset was increasing the startup time of the Windows (I mean the time between appearing the Surface Logo and the Windows log in).

I can’t believe that this is a hardware problem because the device is never dropped or damaged, and for 3 or 4 months it didn’t have any problem.

Some other details:

• A protector is attached to the screen from the first
• I don’t have a Touch/Type Cover but usually a combo IR mouse/keyboard is connected via USB and with/without it situation doesn’t change.
• Calibrating the touch screen or resetting its calibration doesn't help
• Somewhere I road that the fluorescent and magnetic fields may interfere with display of Surface, so I’ve tried removing all nearby electronic equipments and turning off nearby fluorescent lamps, and even using different environments but nothing changed.
• Phantom touches are happening completely randomly and in all application (metro, explorer, etc.). Sometimes they appear from the moment the device is powered on (even on Surface logo and Windows startup) and sometimes they appear some minutes after Windows startup.
• I'm sure that this problem is not caused by any 3rd party application or any physical damage, but probably is caused by some updates.
• Under heavy attacks of phantom touches only then pen can rescue the screen, when even the mouse is trapped or can't do anything!

I’m so disappointed, does anyone have any other suggestion/solution except the Replacement?

Thanks,

Abstract:

• Problems exist: infuriating phantom touch, touch screen dead zone
• Problems solved: random disappearing of pen cursor, problem with Surface Pro Touch Controller Firmware
• Solutions tested: update, driver re-installation, re-calibrating the touch screen, 2-button shutdown, refresh, reset, turning off nearby fluorescent lamps, using different environments