Touchscreen Ghost Clicking (Studio 1747)

Hi there,

Luckily N-trig does communicate with consumers. Yesterday I received the following mail:

Dear Rory,
 
Thank you for your email and sorry for the inconvenience.
 
I would like you to try couple of things.
 
When the system is booting up and you logged into the OS desktop touch with your finger on the screen and using the mouse run calibration from the applet .
 
In case that you are still facing the “ghosting” issue please try to uninstall N-trig bundle and then you will be able to work with single touch.
 
Please advice whether the ghosting is still appearing after removing the N-trig bundle.
 
In case you didn’t face it, install again the bundle and try to see if the problem appears again.
 
Thanks,
Regards

I've gone through above steps and guess what. With the N-trig bundle deinstalled the ghost clicking ceases to exist. But effectively you will have given up multi-touch offcourse and can only use windows generic single touch. I have played 10 matches of chess and a few games of mahjong to be certain. No ghost clicks with N-trig deinstalled. No changes in atmosphere, location and EMI. My computers are always on, laptop sits on the couch a meter from my 700 watt psu.

As soon as i install the a01 N-Trig bundle the problem almost arises instantanously. Gone throught the calibration again but no go. So whatever the rest of you might think I'm pretty convinced its driver/software related.

Weird though that the rest of you can't produce the issues I have with playing chess for instance. But yes Thepoeticvampyre: I havent had any issues with paint either. That was precisely my point. That every program I use experiences ghost clicks... EXCEPT paint. Now how weird is that. That was my first reason to believe that it wasn't hardware or outside interference. Now i'm one step closer because without the n-trig drivers there isnt any problem at all!

My laptop will be collected on thursday but I will convey to you what N-trig hopefully comes up with.

As of now, i'm uninstalling the N-trig software and will do further investigation concerning this issue. Thanks kingpinda, i'll keep you guys updated once i do thorough testing without the N-trig, have a nice day.

General Touch Screen Guidelines

·      Check N-Trig devices in Device Manager: To enter devices manager, click on start, right click on computer and choose properties, click on the device manager link on the left. There should be a Digitizer section in devices manager. It should contain N-Trig HID interface twice and N-Trig HID Tablet Digitizer. Under Human Interface Devices it should have N-Trig MultiTouch filter listed.

·      Check N-Trig device information in N-Trig Pen and Touch Settings: Open control panel and click on hardware and sound. Click N-Trig Pen and Touch Settings and click the about tab.  Check the version fields. For Windows 7 users the latest version is 1.26.8.36, A00.  Look under input device drivers  You can download the latest versions from this link: http://bit.ly/arkdEM 

·      Draw in Paint to verify touch performance: Are there glitches, broken lines?

·      Perform Capacitor Calibration with N-trig Pen and Touch Settings: Capacitor calibration is done using the N-trig software. This process will reset and calibrate all the capacitors for the touch screen. On the N-Trig Pen and Touch Settings, click on the Reset Button. This will initiate the tuning of the touch screen and calibrate the capacitors. It is important that you don’t touch any part of the touch screen during this process. You can touch the screen again once you receive the notification “Screen Input Reset Procedure was completed successfully. 

·      Perform screen calibration in Windows Tablet PC Settings: Windows 7 Provides an option to calibrate touch screens. Click on hardware and sound option in Control Panel. Click on "Calibrate the screen for Pen or touch input" under the "Tablet PC Settings" Option. This will give you a grid where you will be required to touch the crosswires or the plus signs as it shows up on the screen. This will calibrate the entire touch screen.

Going back to basics a bit here, please forgive me if you have already tried these steps. I know that there has been little mention on exactly what drivers should be installed. I am including what should be listed in device manager and where. I am curious to see if you are missing drivers listed in device manager. If it appears items are missing from device manager completely uninstall N-Trig. In control panel choose program, then click uninstall programs and look for N-Trig there and uninstall. Then go back to device manager and uninstall any N-Trig devices still listed.  Restart the system then download the latest driver from the web and see if the device manager is updated correctly for N-Trig.  Let me know if this helps at all.

I have had all these problems with all 3 replacement systems dell has sent me....

.I think they finally got sick of it cause they are sending me a 1749 now.....without the touch screen

and I am totally ok with that cause I never use it....except to show friends the kewl windows lagoon screensaver

I'm pretty sure I wont be having anymore problems with the new one coming

I do appreciate the effort that dell made to make things right....my faith in dell is being restored

the 1737 and the 1747 are the only pc's I've ever had problems with.......every other pc I've received from dell 

has been great....peace

thanks for the advice but I have done all that and still have the same problems..........

but it's all good cause since dell is a stand up company they are sending me a 1749 without the

touch screen and I am totally ok with that...peace and have a great day

yes I have the problem all the time but when it happens on mine it keeps doing it and I can't get anything done.....I have to manually shut the pc done and restart......

For those who still are trying to get touchscreen to work don't forget that:

If you by chance have the A00 N-Trigg bundle driver installed and you deinstall it, it will also erase your panel's firmware. To counter this, install the A01 N-trig driver bundle. If you have a utility CD/DVD from dell then it should be on it. Offcourse you should still check the revision..  If not, I found the driver on dell at the 1749 drivers. It wasnt listed at the 1747 ones but that may differ per location. Dunno.

Good luck all.

Alas i have no news regarding N-trigg. Above was the only email I got and I replied to it some time ago....

Hi Kingpinda.

I am replying to you couse i have seen you took time to describe/share yr problem and possible solutions. and i am replying to everybody here.

I FIXED THE PROBLEM!  SURPRISINGLY DELL FIXED THE PROBLEM. THE 4-TH TECHNICAL GUY FROM DELL FIXED IT. I TALKED WITH 3 OTHERS AND THEY WERE NOT KNOLEDGABLE ENOUGH BUT TOOK MY TIME .

I STOOD 4.5 HOURS ON THE PHONE AND THEY REMOTELY ACCESSED MY COMP.

SOLUTION: BIOS UPGRADE/REINSTALL AND TUCHSCREEN RECALIBRATION AFTER RESET. also solved the problem with Adobe-flash incompatibility with HD videos what previously crashed the computer.

as everywhere if you talk with tach support. first let them know what u think and tell them to not to waste yr time and say clearly if there is a solution or not.

If u like yr dell -touch, don't return it ( as i intended it. and even put the return label on the comp. before i called them).

PS. be patient with the indian guys who say thank you and we will help you 10 times/ min

pls reply if u guys solved it.

I am also having the "ghost" clicking problem on my Studio 1747. I especially hate it when it closes windows! It sounds like the only way as of now to fix it is to uninstall the N-trig bundle and just have single-touch instead of multi-touch. I'm completely ok with this because I never need two or more fingers on the screen anyway.

The only thing is I don't know how to uninstall the N-trig bundle.

If someone could just give me the steps I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

@ Rumbalord: Thanks for letting us know mate. We have however a new laptop now without touch. Hopefully your info can help out the others :)

@ Joeymp:  Mate take a look at Rumbalords' post. Flash your studio 1747 firmware to a11 i believe it is now. Problem with deleting N-trig bundle is, if you have the n-trig firmware a0 in your panel and you uninstall de drivers it will erase the firmware also. You need to install the N-trig bundle A01 to force the firmware back in the panel so to speak. But anyway. To uninstall the N-trig bundle... first check if you can uninstall it via software. if not. right click on computer go to properties and then device manager. then delete n-trigg and something syntisizer from human interface devices.

@KINGPINDA: I did upgrade my BIOS to to A11 and the problem still exists. I found the N-trig bundle in device manager where you said. But when I disabled it it removed ALL touch to my touchscreen, there wasn't even single touch. So I re-enabled it. What now?

Yep, I also did my BIOS upgrade and I'm also having troubles with the ghost clicks. I searched the download with the service tag. So, I'm sure that I had the right file..

I bought a top-spec (top-price) 1747 and, joy, ghost touches for me too. Two weeks later, my replacement machine is due (tomorrow). Will let you know how it goes.

What an incredible waste of time! (setup/migration always takes forever)

Have Dell ack'd that there's a problem and/or is there a cast-iron solution?

There's no need to replace your laptop, because it is the N-trig Multi-touch software that is causing the problem. Until N-trig updates its software to fix the problem the only thing that works 100% of the time is to just uninstall the N-trig software and use single-touch instead of multi-touch. Single-touch still works great, I never really used two fingers to zoom or rotate anyway.The only thing is you lose the ability to flick scroll through websites and itunes and stuff (iPhone style), but using the side scroll bar works fine. So by now you're probably wondering, "alright, alright just tell me how to get rid of this ghost clicking forever." So first go to the control panel -> uninstall program, and look for N-trig bundle or anything that starts with N-trig , and uninstall it. If there is no N-trig bundle then you need to update N-trig and then uninstall it. Update the N-trig bundle by downloading this file and running it. . By now there should be an N-trig bundle in uninstall programs. Uninstall it and ghost clicking is gone FOREVER!!

Thanks for your input; in light of your comments it seems odd to me that Dell want to replace it (after all the setup time I've spent it's the last thing I actually want to do!). Why don't Dell suggest waiting for an N-trig fix (as I'd imagine unit replacement is very costly for them, and, if the new machine is similarly afflicted, it just doesn't look good!)?

Call me old-fashioned, but, after forking out so much for this machine everything must work 100%!