Dead Zone - it's all good.

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Dead Zone Fixed!

We bought a Surface Pro 3 a few years back when it was new. After about 13 months – right after the warranty expired – a dead zone developed on the touch screen in which touch by hand or pen/stylus would not function. This was the approximately top 1/3 of the screen. After much searching and gnashing of teeth, I was unable to find a fix.

Recently, I was resetting the device to factory defaults (fresh OS install, all updates, etc. After successfully troubleshooting an issue with the WiFi adapter disappearing after one of the updates, only to re-appear after updating some chipset drivers manually, I was feeling lucky so I looked into the dead zone again since it still persisted even after the fresh install, etc.

It turns out that Sony made the touch display for the Surface Pro 3. After downloading and running Sony’s Touch Screen Calibration Tool, the dead zone lives again! We now have full functionality of the touch screen as it was originally designed. You can find the tool here: https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/downloads/W0009338

It says that it is for Windows 8, but it worked fine on my fully patched Windows 10 Professional Surface Pro 3 as of July, 2020. Please don’t just download and run. Read the instructions on the download page in the provided link.

The above link is no more, tis but a 404. I used the wayback machine (https://web.archive.org/) with the above URL and was able to download the file, which I’ve attached here.


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Comments

9 responses to “Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Dead Zone Fixed!”

  1. Oscar Avatar
    Oscar

    Thanks man, works perfectly now! I was going to take my surface to a repair store.

    1. Jerry Gartner Avatar
      Jerry Gartner

      Happy to save you time and money!

  2. lulu Avatar
    lulu

    Hi,
    Can you share the calibration program ? Sony removed the download link because Windows 8 isn’t supported anymore… Like 2 weeks ago 🙁

    1. Jerry Gartner Avatar
      Jerry Gartner

      I’ll have a look and repost.

  3. Ceafin Avatar
    Ceafin

    Broken link! Or rather Sony doesn’t offer it anymore? Any chance the program/app/driver is still around somewhere?

    1. Jerry Gartner Avatar
      Jerry Gartner

      I’ll have a look.

  4. Hari Avatar
    Hari

    I am experiencing the same issue. The Sony calibration tool links are no longer functional. Somehow, I managed to obtain the files, but when I attempt to run the command prompt, it closes abruptly. I am considering replacing the screen since the touch digitizer is the only component that is unavailable. Do you have any recommendations?

    1. Jerry Gartner Avatar
      Jerry Gartner

      I’ve attached the calibration tool to the post. Try running as administrator. Replacing the screen will not likely fix the issue as this is a software problem, and not a hardware problem.

  5. sarath Avatar
    sarath

    The link seems to be broken if any one has the download drive please share it.