Surface Book 3 Touch Not Working

Question

Surface Book 3 Touch Not Working

I have had the Surface Book 3 for several weeks and during that time the touchscreen fails to work at some stage on most days. It only starts to work after a hard reboot (pressing power and volume keys). Restart and Shut Down in Windows have no effect on the problem. I am using it with the Surface Slim Pen. It seems that a number of people on the Microsoft Community are having similar touch screen problems with the Book 3 / Slim Pen combo. Is this a known fault? And are there any upcoming firmware / software fixes available?

I have run the Surface Diagnostic Tool countless times and have also uninstalled and reinstalled Human Interface Device drivers as described in this post.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/touchscreen/6b452771-3c7f-426d-9c1a-d59900f17636

All to no avail.

This is very frustrating as I bought the Surface Book 3 specifically for the Touch and Pen capabilities to use with Adobe products.

If I cannot find a solution very soon will have to return the Surface Book 3 for a refund. Great shame as it’s a fantastic laptop.

Answer 1

No one else has replied on Microsoft Community so I will do it myself because I have managed to solve the above problem of the Surface Book 3 touchscreen freezing. I have had the same problems as a number of people on Microsoft Community using the Surface Book 3 / Slim Pen combo i.e. the touchscreen being unresponsive, yet diagnostic tests showed that the hardware on the Book 3 was ok. After 3 weeks of frustration and time waste uninstalled the Slim Pen and bought the Microsoft Standard Pen. Since using the Standard Pen I have had no problems with the touchscreen. It seems clear to me that Microsoft has not adequately tested the Slim Pen with the Surface Book 3 and I rather resent doing Microsoft's beta testing for them. According to Microsoft Support the Book 3 / Slim Pen touchscreen freezing are NOT a known problem. If Amazon had not allowed me to return the Slim Pen out of the returns window I would have been £133 out of pocket having spent £200 on pens. Microsoft does not want to know, it does not even have a complaints procedure aside from recommending me to write to the European Online Dispute Resolution, which given that the UK is no longer a member of the EU is useless. As recommended by complaints forums in the UK I will be writing to Microsoft’s CEO. Experiences like this take the shine off getting a new laptop. Microsoft get a grip and get proper local customer service desks.

Answer 2

Hi, DrKG!

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Community. We apologise for the troubles you've had with the Surface Book 3 that intermittently doesn't respond to your Surface Slim Pen. Thanks for sharing the link to which you tried the steps mentioned there. As you shared, you already returned the pen. May we know if you purchased a new one and did the issue still presents itself?

Looking forward for your response.

Kind regards,

Janette_Z

Answer 3

I have a Surface Pro 3.  The touchscreen isn't working at all.  I have read that the Intel Precise Touch Device Driverwill often cause this issue.  I went out to the Device Manager to update this driver and as you can see below~ I don't have that driver at all.

I have downloaded the driver from the Microsoft library but I don't know how to install a driver that isn't already listed in Device Manager.... please help!

Answer 4

I also have this issue on my Surfacebook 3.

After a while the touch just fails. Pen or just touching the screen won't work.

I deleted the drivers, installed new drivers for the touch screen. But still no result.

Reboot fixes this for a few minutes but then it fails again.