HP Spectre 360 phantom cursor and mouse problem

[akaKJB]

I purchased an X360 refurb (i7-6500) last week and have seen this issue show up about 5 times so far, twice in the past couple of hours.

The first few times, it happened during general use. No external pointing devices are or ever have been attached to the device.

The two I've seen tonight both started while the screen was in sleep mode. The system saw the phantom circle / square / cursor as user input and lit up the screen.  The first time, it stopped when I switched to tablet mode. That didn't work the second time but the fault looked a lot like something I've seen before where an area of the screen was somehow being torqued in a way that it caused a stress point, which on a touchscreen might register as a touch. I pressed around my screen a bit, torquing it a bit and pressing my thumbs down in certain spots just hard enough to cause a bit of distortion. The fault disappeared after that but I have no idea if that was just a coincidence or if what I did actually fixed the problem. On one hand, I hope it never happens again. On the other hand, I'd like to know if this is a fix or if I need to get to the store I bought it from and swap it out before either their stock or my warranty runs out. 

[Photoray002 · Accepted solution]

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@akaKJB wrote:

I purchased an X360 refurb (i7-6500) last week and have seen this issue show up about 5 times so far, twice in the past couple of hours.

I'd like to know if this is a fix or if I need to get to the store I bought it from and swap it out before either their stock or my warranty runs out. 

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Absolutely take it back for an exchange before your refurb warranty runs out.

There is no software fix for Ghost touches. Its a hardware issue and could be anything from a bad or loose ribbon cable to a bad digitizer in the screen.

Good luck.

[Photoray002 · Accepted solution]

There is no software fix for Ghost touches. Its a hardware issue and could be anything from a bad or loose ribbon cable to a bad digitizer in the screen.

Good luck.

[akaKJB]

THANK YOU! Just the info I was looking for. Hopefully they still havce them in stock. I know they were down to 5 when I bought mine last week. Other than that, I absolutely love this thing and look forward to using it as long or longer than I did my tm2!

[Photoray002]

Your welcome.  Yes they are nice. I have one also and love it too.

[akaKJB]

Just checked the store's website and they've still got 5 left in stock. I should be good to take it in tomorrow morning. I'm surprised because their price on these is the lowest I've found in the country right now - $850 for Ash Silver, i7-6500, 16gb ram / 512gb SSD. If anyone's seen them any cheaper, I'd like to know about it! LOL

[akaKJB]

What's the best way to run a quick backup the few things I've already done with this computer before I go swap it out? I'd like to be able to just restore everything onto the new one without having to backup the entire OS.

[Photoray002]

That all depends on what you are needing to restore.

How much data have you accrued in the short amount of time you've had the unit, that you can't just copy/paste over to an external drive for storage?

As far as any 3rd party programs you've installed, you would have to reinstall those onto what ever new computer you get.

Also, depending on which programs, you might need to see if they require you to deactivate them first before reinstalling to another PC due to licensing requirements like MS Office.

[akaKJB]

Fortunately, I hadn't gotten that far.  Looking at it, I'm sure I can save everything I need to onto Google Drive or One Drive. I've just gotten spoiled on my smartphones - the last few have read my backup and reinstalled everything I had on the previous device. I just tend to get a little paranoid when it comes to hitting the button to scorch the info saved on the hard drive.

Thanks!

[Photoray002]

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@akaKJB wrote:

 I can save everything I need to onto Google Drive or One Drive.

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Yes, that would a good way to do it.

Depending on how important your files are, I would consider an external drive also so you will have both.

External drives allow you to access files a lot faster than having to connect to the interwebs and download them again.

Remember the old saying... If you only have one copy, then its not a "copy"!

Good luck.

[akaKJB]

Well, just an FYI update:

Within about a 6 hour period between my getting my files backed up and being able to get it back to the store, they completely sold out of these. Unless they somehow get more in by the end of business tomorrow, that'll be my 15 days gone. Soooooo - as its only happened twice, hasn't for some time and I 've been able to somehow correct it within a minute or two, it looks like I may just be having to live with a machine that's got a quirk to it. Not the first time.

So, now I'm just looking for the right stylus to use with it. I've seen posts saying the HP Active Stylus and the Dell Active Stylus will both work on the x360 and about as many posts saying that they won't, with the most recent message I can find on the subject being from August, 2016. Anyone have mroe up to date information on this?