In The Shop: Fixin' Frozen Touch-Screen Displays
Feb 15, 2012
Scott, our technology specialist, taught me a nifty trick today. I was working with a machine that has a touch-screen display in it, and the screen often would barely react when I poked it with my finger to change a setting. Sometimes it wouldn't work at all--just stayed frozen on the same image no matter how much I poked and prodded. And I eventually poked and prodded it pretty hard.
I gave Scott a call, and he said to stick the corner of a business card carefully between the surface of the screen and the edge of the screen's housing, and carefully run it around the entire perimeter. He said dirt, dust and debris often gets wedged between the face of the screen and the housing, which applies pressure to the screen at that point. The display thinks somebody is holding their finger against the screen, which causes the problems I was experiencing.
Sure enough, there were two spots, one on the right side and one along the bottom edge, where the business card found teeny little bits of debris wedged between the face of the screen and the housing. I did a little gently prying, used a can of "air in a can" to blow things out, and the display now works just fine.
Cool!
