Acer Chromebook 713 2W 5874 Intermittent Input Freeze, trackpad and touchscreen will no longer work

EmanTech

Hi

My chromebook has a very random issue where the trackpad and touchscreen will no longer work or take input. The keyboard will work and I can control if I know shortcut keys. After about 5 minutes the device will reboot. (or I can restart it myself). After it will work fine for weeks or months or a few days.

This same issue also happens when I go into tablet mode and in such a case it is generally repeatable, it may take 10 - 15 minutes, but it happens.

My belief is that this is code related and not hardware. I believe this b/c it happened on certain sites that makes me believe it is certain code on the site. I also have thought that certain chrome extensions may be causing it and I"ve disabled them. I'm not sure about the tablet mode situation. That is the most annoying b/c it happens every time.

This has been happening as long as I can remember. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!!

E

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Axxo

In most cases, you can fix the touchscreen on your Chromebook yourself. Follow these steps in order, testing the screen after each one to see if it works:

Restart the Chromebook. If the touchscreen stopped working because of a temporary software-related issue, a reboot is a great first step to try.

Through that link are directions for how to hard reset the Chromebook, which you should also try if a normal restart doesn't fix the touchscreen.

Clean the screen. Shut down your Chromebook, and thoroughly clean the screen using a lint-free cloth. The steps are similar to cleaning the screen on an iPad. Be careful to remove any dirt or debris, food crumbs, or sticky residues, and dry the screen if it has any liquid on it.

If the screen is filthy, you can use a cleaning solution specifically designed for LCD screens and a microfiber cloth. Use as little liquid as possible, and don't drip on the keyboard or allow the cleaning solution to run down behind the screen. Finish up by completely drying the screen with another microfiber cloth.

Never use any cleaning product that includes ammonia, ethyl alcohol, acetone, or anything else that isn't designed for use with Chromebook touchscreens.

Clean and dry your hands. Before trying your touchscreen again, make sure your fingers aren't sticky and are free from dirt or the touchscreen may not function correctly.

If a stylus or touchscreen-approved gloves work on the screen, then your fingers must be to blame.

Make sure the touchscreen isn't off. Chromebooks have the option to toggle the touchscreen on and off. If you accidentally do this, the screen will stop responding to your touch until it's turned back on.

To activate the Chromebook touchscreen toggle, press Search + Shift + T.

You might need to enable a Chrome flag for this shortcut to work. Navigate to chrome://flags/#ash-debug-shortcuts and enable Debugging keyboard shortcuts.

Update the Chromebook. The latest version of Chrome OS includes fixes for all known software bugs, one of which could be contributing to the touchscreen not working.

Reset your Chromebook to factory settings. If your touch screen still doesn't work, the next step is to reset it to factory settings.

This process, called powerwashing, will remove all local data, so make sure you've backed up any local files to your Google Drive.

If your touchscreen still isn’t working even after a full powerwash, contacting the manufacturer or bringing your Chromebook to a professional for repairs might be a good idea. A technician is best equipped to deal with this sort of hardware issue.

If your touchscreen is working, but it acts up by registering touches in the wrong place, that’s usually a sign of a hardware problem, too. So, in both cases, it’s likely something related to the physical components of your device.

billsey

You are likely correct in that it is software related rather than hardware. What apps are installed? It's less likely to be the OS itself and more likely a third party app.

EmanTech

Thanks for the responses. I only have 2 apps installed that are not default on the Chromebook. (Teams and something else I don't use often. ). It seems to me to be code on certain web pages that causes it. I had hoped that this might be a common problem that was known.

billsey

Can you pin down at all which sites cause the issue? Are you current with the OS version? Since the Chrome browser is built in to the OS you can't really update it separately…