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Help One X digitiser has intermittent dead strip

Got my One X from CPW on 12 June, and it has generally been fine apart from the odd freeze, which was fixed by pushing the power button to put it in Sleep, then wake again. The GPS seems pretty accurate, and no Wi-Fi issues. It's unlocked running 1.29.401.11.

In the last couple of days, the digitizer has developed a strange intermittent fault, which I first noticed when trying to type in SwiftKey 3 Keyboard. The third row of icons on the home screen also become unresponsive. I also checked in the Paint note in Note Everything, and that illustrates the problem clearly. The attached shows the gap in what should be continuous lines. I've tried un-installing potential problem apps, but it remains intermittent. I'm about to try a hard reset to factory settings before going back to CPW, as that is the first thing they will say. It's only 10 days old, so if it's a hardware fault, will they give me a new one?

Anyone any ideas on potential software causes?

Bruce
 

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Got my One X from CPW on 12 June, and it has generally been fine apart from the odd freeze, which was fixed by pushing the power button to put it in Sleep, then wake again. The GPS seems pretty accurate, and no Wi-Fi issues. It's unlocked running 1.29.401.11.

In the last couple of days, the digitizer has developed a strange intermittent fault, which I first noticed when trying to type in SwiftKey 3 Keyboard. The third row of icons on the home screen also become unresponsive. I also checked in the Paint note in Note Everything, and that illustrates the problem clearly. The attached shows the gap in what should be continuous lines. I've tried un-installing potential problem apps, but it remains intermittent. I'm about to try a hard reset to factory settings before going back to CPW, as that is the first thing they will say. It's only 10 days old, so if it's a hardware fault, will they give me a new one?

Anyone any ideas on potential software causes?

Bruce

If you use the phone landscape or portrait does it make any difference?
Does the dead strip stay in the same portion of the screen or does it flip and follow the orientation?



(instructions for a stock phone, since you are unlocked/rooted it may not work the same
I'm in the U.S. on a similar phone however the instructions should be the same nonetheless)

Turn your phone off and restart it.
During restart, once you see the "HTC - Quietly Brilliant" screen, hold the down key on the volume rocker and don't let off of it until you feel a vibration haptic feedback or you see 'safe mode' in the lower left corner of the screen. The phone will boot into safe mode with all user installed software off.

Next, on your phone open the dialer, like you are going to dial the phone number of a friend. Instead dial *#*#3424#*#* (*#*#DIAG#*#*). It will take you to the HTC Function Test application (v3.01.01g). On the white screen, press accept and look for the "Line Drawing Test". Press the check box and hit 'run' and it will take you through a simple test of the touch screen. This may help you diagnose your issue as a base hardware problem.
(Note: There is a Line drawing test with no time limit on the second page of tests when you hit the 'more' button at the bottom of the screen)

If you still show a dead spot in the screen with this line test then it is pretty safe to assume you have a hardware issue and not a software problem. The final check would be to re-lock/un-root/factory restore and try the test again, but it will probably not un-do a serious problem like you are seeing.

The store you purchased from should cover an obvious hardware fault such as this within their return policy - whatever it may be. If the store won't help you, you can get it repaired through HTC directly.

Let us know what you figure out :)
 
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Thanks very much PyroSporker and El Presidente!

Using the phone landscape in the paint note, the dead area stays on the same physical part of the screen. Running the line drawing test in safe mode confirms the dead area. The phone is unbranded from CPW, but not rooted, just running standard on a Vodafone SIM.

I just rang the CPW Oxford shop, and as it's within the 30 day period, they will just swap it. Not for another one that's done the rounds hopefully!

As it's going back, I'll do a factory restore now and check again. The tech guy there previously said they had had quite a few One Xs back which is worrying.

Thanks again for your superb help,

Bruce
 
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I tried it again after the factory reset. It didn't seem to want to go into Safe Mode from that, so I disabled Fast Boot under Power settings, and it went in OK after that. Trying the standard Notes app in drawing mode, it seemed OK, but once in Safe Mode, and running the Line drawing test again, it still had the same problem, so it's going back.

I couldn't see any mention of what Fast Boot mode does in the HTC documentation. It's on by default, and is certainly fast, but early on when it felt unstable, I turned this off and it seemed more solid. I'd rather trade a bit of a wait for it to boot for stability. Do people generally leave theirs in the default Fast Boot mode?
 
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Turning Fastboot off and USB debugging on are the first settings I change when I get a new phone/flash a ROM. With Fastboot active, your phone won't switch off, it just sits in a low power hibernation waiting for you to switch it "on" again. Because it's not really off, it gives the impression that it's booting faster than normal.

Make sense?
 
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Turning Fastboot off and USB debugging on are the first settings I change when I get a new phone/flash a ROM. With Fastboot active, your phone won't switch off, it just sits in a low power hibernation waiting for you to switch it "on" again. Because it's not really off, it gives the impression that it's booting faster than normal.

Make sense?

Ah, absolutely. So like Standby on a PC. I'm sure like on PCs, a complete re-boot is a good idea at regular intervals, and this would make it more difficult. It really is annoying that the HTC documentation doesn't cover things like this. Thanks again.
 
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