"Dead" areas on touchscreen & phantom touches

[Guest scott299]

Hi all,

I've recently encountered two recurring problems on my San Diego which due to their natures appear to be somewhat related. I was wondering if anyone had encountered similar problems and if there was any known solution/cause.

The first problem is the occasional appearance of a "dead" area on the touch screen - that is, an area which does not respond to being touched, which generally persists across apps and locks/unlocks of the phone. The dead area is typically quite small - about the size of a button on the virtual keyboard (meaning the affected button(s) cannot be pressed making typing difficult) but is not in a fixed place; typically it lasts a few hours then is back to normal again but can reappear elsewhere later. Turning the phone off and on again temporarily fixes the problem. This is especially problematic on the lockscreen, since if the dead patch appears over one of the unlock-pattern nodes, then I can't unlock my phone! This seems to happen several times a day.

The second problem is that occasionally the phone will behave as if it is being repeatedly tapped/touched on the screen in a certain fixed place, which pretty much makes the phone unusable as most apps (including the desktop/menus/OS) only respond to one touch event at a time, and this phantom touching/tapping seems to override any actual touches. This always happens in the same place on the phone, roughly in the centre. I've always turned the phone off immediately when this happens which fixes the problem. This problem occurs much less frequently than the first, maybe a couple of times a week.

I've tried killing all running tasks when the first problem happens, and this doesn't solve it. The second problem prevents me from doing anything other than shutting down the phone. I'm running ICS (the official update) and have had my device about 6 months. I'd rather not have to factory reset the phone or send it back - unless there's an easy way of backing up all of the (non-SD-card) data?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Guest i am not a hacker]

I don't know how to fix this but when you can't unlock the phone, you can aid this by using face unlock which doesn't require a touch. I have an internationally recognised qualification in engineering (GCSE) and I am not sure.

Edited December 28, 2012 by i am not a hacker

[Guest Simon O]

Sounds like you have a faulty touch digitizer

[Guest waj1234]

I have had this before on other phones but only when plugged into the mains charger. I get it on this too but only on mains. Probably a poorly made charger.

Must be something else if it happens off charge too.