Recent days, observing Phantom or ghost touches on my surface book 2

Good day, Richard Trinidad

About the phantom touch issue, I observe several times that after use of around half an hour or during starting time this phantom touch appears in a horizontal position. After 5-6 min it disappears automatically and come back again aftersometime. Now here my observation, I bought this surface model from aftermarket in Japan. After some days, the windows image crushed and I couldn't recover. On that time, I downloaded windows 10 from 3rd party website. On that time, the display was okay, no phantom touch detected. But when I downloaded official surface book 2 recovery image from official microsoft website. Then I recovered my surface book 2 according to the official instruction from microsoft. After the installation and further update the phantom touch problem appeared. Now please tell me is there any connection between this update issue.

Present condition: I am trying to update my windows from 3rd party website and want to examine that this problem still exist or not

Hi Sabbir, thank you for your detailed follow-up. I’m glad you’ve already taken steps to troubleshoot both issues. Let’s go deeper into each one to help you get your Surface Book 2 running smoothly again.

Phantom/Ghost Touches & Auto-Brightness Behavior, Since the touchscreen worked fine in the UEFI menu, that’s a strong indication the issue is not hardware-related, but rather software or driver-related. Here are a few things you can try next:

For Advanced Driver Cleanup and Reinstallation, Open Device Manager Then Expand Human Interface Devices, Right-click HID-compliant touch screen and choose Uninstall device, Do the same for Intel Precise Touch Device if listed then Restart your Surface. Windows should reinstall the drivers automatically.

If the issue persists, consider downloading the Surface Book 2 Drivers and Firmware package from Microsoft’s official site and reinstalling all drivers manually.

Sometimes ghost touches are linked to Intel graphics settings, then Open Intel Graphics Command Center or Intel HD Graphics Control Panel, Look for Power Settings then Disable Panel Self Refresh.

In Auto-Brightness Still Active Despite Settings, this is a known issue where Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC) overrides user settings. But before that, Be cautious when editing the registry. Back it up first, to disable it simply Open Registry Editor (regedit) then Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Intel\Display\igfxcui\profiles\media\Brighten Movie

Then Set Enable to 0, Also check below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration

and look for FeatureTestControl set it to 0x00000000

In Windows 11 Upgrade Path, you mentioned using the Windows 11 Installation Assistant, which is a good workaround. Since your Surface Book 2 doesn’t show the upgrade in Windows Update, it likely has a 7th Gen Intel CPU, which is not officially supported.

What You Did is Right, Using the Installation Assistant bypasses the TPM/CPU check.

If you meet TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and UEFI requirements, the upgrade should work.

Also, for post-upgrade, after upgrading, check Windows Update for any missing drivers or firmware then Visit the Surface Book 2 support page to manually install any missing updates, please see the link, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/download-drivers-and-firmware-for-surface-09bb2e09-2a4b-cb69-0951-078a7739e120

You're doing a great job navigating these issues. If ghost touches continue even after driver reinstalls and registry tweaks, consider a clean Windows reinstall or contacting Microsoft Support for a deeper diagnostic, here’s the link if you need it:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

Let me know if this is helpful.

Chard

Hi , sir . Thanks a lot for your kind suggestion .

Let's talk about the issues.

Issue no. 1

I checked about the ghost touch problem in the UEFI menu . But everything was alright . For your kind information , at regular use , It happens quit less. So, what could be the issue? Software/Driver or Hardware .

oh, one more thing , in my surface device , brightness automatically change based on content running in screen though I unticked already to change brightness automatically.

Issue No. 2

About windows update , I have gone through both of your recommended method but nothing works,sir.

then I download Windows 11 upgrade assistant for upgradation.

Thank you.

Hi Sabbir, Thanks for posting here in Microsoft community, I’m sorry you’re dealing with ghost touches and a non-responsive screen, especially when you're just trying to get things done. Let's walk through this together and see if we can get your Surface Book 2 back to working smoothly.

For Phantom or Ghost Touches and Touchpad Not Working, this is a known issue on some Surface devices, and it can stem from either hardware or software. Here’s a step-by-step approach to help you isolate and hopefully fix it,

Have you tried to test it on UEFI to check if it’s hardware-related? To do this, simply Power off your Surface then Hold Volume Up and press Power until the Surface logo appears, then in the UEFI menu, try using the touchscreen, if it doesn’t respond here, it’s likely a hardware issue.

If it does respond, the problem is probably software or driver related, Reinstall the Touchscreen Driver, simply Open Device Manager Then Expand Human Interface Devices, then Right-click HID-compliant touch screen > Uninstall device then Restart your Surface. Windows should reinstall the driver automatically.

When it comes to No Windows 11 Upgrade Option

This one’s a bit tricky; Surface Book 2 only officially supports Windows 11 if it has an 8th Gen Intel CPU (like i5-8350U or i7-8650U). If your model has a 7th Gen CPU (like i5-7300U), it won’t show the upgrade in Windows Update because it’s not officially supported.

Have you tried to Check Compatibility? then You can confirm this by running the PC Health Check Tool.

Let me know how it goes.

Chard