Surface Pro 6 - Cursor Disappearing?

Anonymous
2023-05-30T02:59:54+00:00

Two years ago, I started having this issue where my mouse cursor would disappear and three clear circles would appear on the right side of my screen. I would be able to "swipe" them away, then my cursor would reappear, but freeze and disappear again shortly after. After numerous calls with Microsoft and many scans and command codes inputted, I had a call with a support agent, and she figured it out. Apparently, something was wrong with the touch function of my screen, and it was preventing my mouse/cursor to function properly. She advised me to go into my Settings/Control Panel and deactivate the touch screen as both the touch screen and the mousepad can't work at the same time anymore. It's unfortunate, but I'll deal with it. Since then, I've only used the mousepad on my keyboard and not the touch screen.

Today, I restarted my computer to install required updates, and this issue has come up again. I have three clear circles on the right side of my screen, but I can't swipe them away this time. This time, my cursor is frozen next to those circles. I was able to plug in an adapter for a wireless mouse, and I'm able to use it, but now I have two cursors on my screen - the frozen one on the right side of the screen next to the circles and the one for the mouse that's plugged it. The mouse being plugged in sometimes freezes, and I have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in.

How can I fix this? It's very bothersome. Ideally, I'd go back to using both the touch screen and the mousepad. If not, I'll settle for deactivating the touch screen again. It's especially irritating since I bought this in 2019 and have kept it in really good condition. It doesn't have a lot of wear and tear as I graduated in 2020 and it's not used as often since. Still, I'd like the whole device to be functioning properly for when I need it.

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Surface | Surface Pro | Performance and maintenance

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-06-14T22:29:01+00:00

    Hi Dylan820,

    We haven't heard from you, so we assume that your issue has already been addressed. We will not be monitoring this thread moving forward so, if you need further assistance, please create a new thread to discuss these concerns by clicking this link: Create a new question or start a discussion (microsoft.com)

    Thank you for understanding. 

    Kind regards,
    Marrion

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-05-30T14:40:36+00:00

    Hi Dylan820,

    Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community and sorry to hear about the touch issue that you are having on your Surface Pro 6.

    Basically, the 3 white circles or bubbles that you are seeing are ghost touch touches on the screen. It is possible that this ghost touches are already a hardware issue on the screen of the Surface in which no troubleshooting could fix and so disabling the touchscreen of the device would allow you to continue using it but without the touchscreen functionality. It is possible also that the updates that you installed on the device re-enabled the touchscreen of the device and so the ghost circles appear again.

    Please try first to boot the Surface to its UEFI screen to check and isolate if this ghost touches are already a hardware issue or just due to some software on the device. See this page for the steps on how to get to the UEFI settings: How to use Surface UEFI - Microsoft Support. Once you are on the UEFI screen, just try to check if you are able to navigate the device and see if the ghost touches also occur on that environment. After checking, just select Exit > Restart now or if you are unable to navigate the device due to the ghost touches, you may just turn the device off to boot it back to Windows.

    Once you are back on the Windows environment of the device and if the issue occurs also on the UEFI environment which would mean that the ghost touches are already a hardware issue, please proceed in disabling the touchscreen again of the device by following these steps:

    Open Device Manager

    Expand Human Interface devices

    Right-click on the Intel Precise Touch driver

    Select Disable device

    This would disable again the touchscreen of the device and would allow you to navigate the device using the mouse or the touchpad of the typecover.

    Let me know how it goes.

    Kind regards,

    Marrion

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-06-02T02:02:02+00:00

    Hi Marrion,

    I appreciate your response.

    I was able to get to the UEFI screen, where no ghost touches appeared and the mousepad worked fine. However, once I restarted the device, they reappeared and the mousepad wasn't cooperating.

    I've disabled the Intel Precise Toucher driver, and I'm back to normal (without the touchscreen functionality, of course).

    Thank you!

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-06-06T21:47:26+00:00

    Hi Dylan820,

    Thank you for the response and sorry to hear that still the issue persists even though it works fine on the UEFI environment. For this case, it seems that the issue is just being caused by some software on the device since it works fine on the UEFI screen. However, for us to rule out this possibility, we'll have to perform a clean installation of Windows on the device through USB Recovery then see if the issue would still occur right after the clean installation. This option will reimage the entire device and reload Windows including the drivers and firmware. It is the most complete form of Reset and it will wipe out everything on the device. You will need also a 16GB/32GB of flash drive that must be formatted into FAT32 prior to downloading the Recovery Image. If you wish to proceed, you may follow this guide below:

    USB Recovery:

    How to Download, Create and Use a USB recovery drive

    To download the Recovery Image:

    • You'll need another working device running on Windows.
    1. Visit the page to Download the recovery image for your Surface
    2. Sign in with your Microsoft Account
    3. From the list of Surface devices available, select the device that you need a recovery image for
      Please note that while you will only be presented with devices that are currently registered on your account, you will also be presented with the option to get an image for a different type of device. If you try to use this option, you will be prompted to enter the serial number for that device
    4. Download the recovery image using the button on the page
    5. When the download bar pops up at the bottom of your screen, save the file in a location you will be able to find it.

     Format USB Drive:

    • Note: Formatting a recovery drive will erase anything that is already stored on your USB drive. Make sure to transfer any important data from your USB drive to another storage device before using it to create a Surface USB recovery drive.
    1. Insert your USB drive into the USB port of your PC.
    2. From the desktop, open File Explorer
    3. Tap and hold or right-click on the USB drive and choose Format
    4. Select FAT32 as the file system and enter a Volume label to name the USB drive, such as RECOVERY, and then tap or click Start
    5. Tap or click OK to erase the contents of the USB drive
    6. Tap or click OK when the format is complete

    Create a recovery drive:

    1. On your Surface or PC, open recovery image that you downloaded by double-clicking it or right click then select Extract and then Extract all.
    2. Select the USB drive you formatted earlier for the location and click Extract.

    Use a USB recovery drive to reset your Surface:

    1. Shutdown the Surface
    2. Insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port
    3. Press and hold the volume-down (-) rocker
    4. Press and release the power button
    5. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down (-) rocker
    6. Surface will start the recovery software on the USB recovery drive
    7. When prompted, choose your language options and keyboard layout
    8. Select Troubleshoot
    9. Select Recover from a Drive. Choose Remove Everything and Fully Clean the Drive. Recovering this PC.
    10. If prompted, select Repartition the drives
    11. If prompted for BitLocker Key, tap Skip this Drive

    Kind regards,
    Marrion

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