No touch or digitizer after W10 upgrade on Aspire R7

I just upgraded my daughter's Aspire R7 (15") to windows 10. All is well except that touch and the active digitizer are not working.

In the device manager everything looks good (no warnings) , under Human Interface Devices, I have an HID compliant touchscreen item that says the device is working properly and has the latest driver from Microsoft dated 2006.

But I dont see anything related to Ntrig Duo sense. May be now that Microsoft bough Ntrig it is under a different name. I do have an HID compliant pen installed with latest 2006 microsoft driver.

I have already done:

All updates

Uninstalled the HID compliant touch screen and rebooted so it reinstalls.

Installed the Wintab 64 bit drivers from the new Microsoft location

Questions:

1- Has anyone had this issue when upgrading to W10?

2- Can people have sucessfully upgraded to Windows 10 check what they have in the device manager under Human Interface Devices, and check if they have something referring to the digitizer.

My next step would be to uninstall the W10 update to see if that gets me touch and digitizer back, but I would rather try everything I can under W10 first.

Any suggestions welcome

Thanks

Accepted answers

rufaz

i had the same issue, there were repititve "ghost touch" on along top of the screen. i thought it was due to defective touch panel and wanted to order a new screen. but really, somehow the driver i uploaded, repaired it for me.

perhaps, windows replaced the n-trig driver that you installed, and it brought the issue back? i suspect that is what happened in your case, it was proven that the driver fixed the problem, just that, it returned. windows 10 is known to replace proper drivers with defective one from microsoft updates (especially sound driver).

THE ONLY WAY to ensure that it is NOT your touch panel acting up, is reinstall back fresh windows 8. because we did not have any of this issue back then in windows 8. only windows 10, touchscreen acting up due to improper driver.

anyway, i am still in windows 10 with latest drivers. everything works well since i installed the n-trig driver back then

All comments

scrambler

Here are my progress so far.

After reading a thread on the subject below

http://community.acer.com/t5/Legacy-Laptops-and-Netbooks/Acer-Aspire-R7-572-Touch-Screen-Glitching-Out/td-p/194483/page/3

I downloaded the Ntrig Duo Sense driver hosted by rufaz at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzFxbfly24ZFajNrUEtxd1dVS2M/view?pref=2&pli=1

Although I read from users who upgraded to W10 that the Ntrig driver was no longer needed and removed by the windows 10 installer, I decided to try and reinstall that driver under windows 10

The installation went fine, right after the install, the mouse was glitching, but after I did a reboot, everything was working again, I had both touch and digitizer.

So I dont know why my windows 10 upgrade broke the digitizer, nor why reinstalling the W 8.1 Ntrig Duo Sense drivers that is not supposed to be needed fixed it, but so far it seems to work.

I'll update if more issues arise

scrambler

Well, the cursor flashing came back, so I desinstalled the Ntrig Duo sense driver.

Funny thing is the touch and digitzer are still working.

But it looks like the cursor flickering comes from touch events being spontaneously generated at the top right of the panel, so my guess is that the touch panel is defective which probably caused the orginal issue in the first place.

I found the replacement part for the Touch/Digitizer glass online, but I cannot find any removal instructions anywhere. It looks like it may just be an issue of prying the thin plastic bezel off the metal casing, but I would like to be sure before taking the risk to break it off.

If anyone has experience or information with removing the top glass from the lid assembly, I would love to hear about it!

rufaz

i had the same issue, there were repititve "ghost touch" on along top of the screen. i thought it was due to defective touch panel and wanted to order a new screen. but really, somehow the driver i uploaded, repaired it for me.

perhaps, windows replaced the n-trig driver that you installed, and it brought the issue back? i suspect that is what happened in your case, it was proven that the driver fixed the problem, just that, it returned. windows 10 is known to replace proper drivers with defective one from microsoft updates (especially sound driver).

THE ONLY WAY to ensure that it is NOT your touch panel acting up, is reinstall back fresh windows 8. because we did not have any of this issue back then in windows 8. only windows 10, touchscreen acting up due to improper driver.

anyway, i am still in windows 10 with latest drivers. everything works well since i installed the n-trig driver back then

scrambler

I agree that ultimately the test will be to uninstall W10, go back to 8.1, install the Ntrig driver and test.

If then it works, I will try to redo the W10 update.

If then it still does not work, then the screen is defective...

scrambler

Well, went back to windows 8.1, reinstalled the N Trig drivers and screen still does not work, it goes crazy by itself.

So I guess I will have to try and pry it out and see if I can do that without braking anything.

The next problem is that searching for replacement digitizers screen, I did find a number of places selling it, but most of them believe it is only the touch deigitizer, not the Duo sense with both touch and active stylus suport. Others simply have no clue which does not inspire confidence.

And for people selling the full screen assembly (IPS screen + Digitizer layer), same thing, SoIi may have to loose pen support if I replace the screen...

If anyone knows of a place that sells either the N Trig duo sense digitizer layer or a full screen assembly with it, I and interested!

Thanks.

rufaz

i guess, best solution is to go for acer's authorised service center and let them do the job. you'd definitely get back genuine hardware... but, it will be expensive.

scrambler

Well repair by Acer is unreasonably priced (might as well buy a refurbished unit). So I took the plunge on self-repair.

The good news is that prying off the screen assembly from the aluminum casing was extremely easy.

Using one of these plastic tool to open electronics, I started at the top of the plastic bezel, and moving my way around, unclipped the plastic bezel from the aluminum case very easily.

The screen assembly appears to have three components, The thin black plastic bezel, the Digitizer glass, and the LCD panel. Only two cables to the casing, a flat metal 30pin connector, and a small black one.

The bigger challenge was to separate the screen assembly from the plastic bezel.

The screen assembly is glued to the thin plastic bezel with double sided tape all around the edges (between bezel and digitizer glass). So I followed the technique explained in countless video for phone digitizer replacement.

I made myself a number of small thin wooden strips with pieces of veneer, sanding the edges to make them blade like (people usually use guitar picks). I then used a hair dryer to heat the edges, then used my thin wood strips to lift the digitizer glass and slowly move my way around to separate the glass from the plastic bezel. Heating, moving strip, heating, moving strip...Patience is rewarded Smiley Happy

Once separated from the plastic bezel, the screen is made of two pieces, the LCD panel and the digitizer glass. They are taped /glued together by the edges. Separating them without destroying the taped connector between the digitizer glass and the small control board sandwiched between them at the bottom seems impossible.

This means I will need to replace the screen assembly (LCD + Digitizer glass) together, instead of just the digitizer glass. I found some online that appear to include both the digitizer panel and the LCD (so I don’t have to deal with the assembly). Initially I had asked all the vendors if their digitizer was the duo sense N-trig one. Half did not know, the others said no, but probably because they have no clue.

Once my assembly was off, I noticed that there is a small N-Trig control board attached at the back with a triple connector to the digitizer glass, and the picture of one of the vendors actually seem to have that board on their assembly unit. So I asked them to confirm the reference on their board, if this is the N-Trig control board, these may actually be the duo sense digitizer models (to be confirmed).

I should hear back from them next week, and will come back here with and update.

To be continued Smiley Happy

Pictures: http://1drv.ms/1ZF3IjT

scrambler

OK, So I ordered the screen below from EBay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181921061504?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

It showed the assembly with the N-Trig board which meant it had to have the dual digitizer.

The screen I received did not have the board, so I had to remove my board from by screen to use with it.

The board is glued with strong double sided tape. I did not want to heat it, nor did I want to pry it with a blade by fear of damaging it. So I used a strong thread passed under the board, to saw off the glue, and the board came off easily.

Connecting the 3 flat ribbon connectors to the board was a bit tricky, you don't have much room to hold the ribbon and it does not go in easily. There is a thin white line that does show you how deep you need to go, so you just need to go a little bit at a time cycling through the three of them, and ultimately I got them all fully in.

Reassembling the screen was fairly easy. I use 4mm wide 3M double sided tape (the type used for phone digitizers) all around the bezel, and pressed the new screen gently in. Did a few passes all around to get good pressure. I added some regular tape on the back in a few spots for safety.

Good News, once connected, both touch and the active stylus worked, so this is the right part.

I believe the part sold by other vendors like below are also good, with the duo sense digitizer.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/15-6-Laptop-Touch-LCD-LED-Screen-Digitizer-B156HAN01-2-For-Acer-Aspire-R7-572-/271954986222?hash=item3f51c7c4ee:g:bmoAAOSw9r1V-Sk3

So all in all that screen replacement was a lot easier than I expected. Not trivial, but definitely feasible if you are reasonably good with your hands

rufaz

oh my. it was easy? last time i tried to pry off the screen by starting from the top, it was alright.. then moving to the bottom, i was afraid i would mess up somewhere.. hence i stopped.

tried to search for any guide in youtube, there's none.

did you record the whole process? (i bet you dont...) but, if you do, mind to upload them to youtube? it will be extremely useful incase anything goes wrong later... because till date, i have not found a PROPER REPLACEMENT to this laptop (except the overpriced surface book). so, i'd like to fix this R7 whenever it is broken in the future..

scrambler

I unfortunately did not record it, but really prying off the screen was my biggest fear, and it turned out to be no problem at all.

Use one of these small plastic prying tools they give with electronic repair kits (I can post a picture of that it you dont know what I mean). Then just proceed gently, move, pry a bit, move, pry a bit, and really no area gave me any problem, it separates very easily.

The more difficult part is the ungluing using heat. If you want to see video of the principle, search youtube for any phone digitizer replacement (like the galaxy SIII), and you will see how they proceed around the edge of the digitizer layer to separate the screen from the bezel.