gateway NV570P touchscreen going crazy

[Will Rickards]

So I've been tasked with looking at this gateway NV570P laptop with a touchscreen that is going crazy.
By going crazy I mean randomish touches all over and if the onscreen keyboard is brought up it types like crazy.
Windows 8 ish. Looks like the nephew tried to reinstall windows but it has a build number on the screen so I assume this is not legit reinstall.

I started by determining whether it was the touchpad or the touchscreen. So I changed the setting that disables the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in and plugged in a mouse. Same issue. Mouse still moves around randomly. Changing those settings with the touchscreen going crazy was nearly impossible.

Then I booted it off a linux mint live usb stick. Still mouse craziness. But in compatibility mode it worked fine. I'm guessing that disables the touchscreen.

So what should I do now?
Take it apart I'm guessing.

 

[ddrueding]

Does safe mode kill the touchscreen? Can you kill the touch drivers from there? If not, open it up and just unplug the touch bit.

 

[Howell]

You might be able to rdp into the machine to get better control. For repair, I'd start with an update to the touchscreen driver.

 

[Mercutio]

Sounds like a bad digitizer to me. I think that's normally something that has to be replaced with the screen, or you might be able to get a screen that just doesn't have the touch capability. On a laptop I'd guess it's probably not essential functionality.

Good news about it being an Acer: The screen will be dead simple to replace.

 

[Will Rickards]

I couldn't get into safe mode on this thing except by rebooting it through windows that way (hold shift while clicking the power icon thing). F8 at boot didn't work.
I'll take the screen apart and see if the digitizer is separate. Looks like you can order them separately online but that doesn't mean it isn't glued to the panel.

Next problem, no backup disks were made. How to get windows properly reinstalled? I don't have any windows 8 media as I don't own any windows 8 machines.

 

[Mercutio]

Windows 8 needs to be able to start normally to get to safe mode. Yes, you're right, that is retarded (in the actual dictionary definition sense).
With regard to OEM media, if you need it just let me know and I'll make an ISO and put it someplace where you can download it.

It would behoove you to use something like Belarc Advisor to snag the Windows product key. Is this machine Standard or Pro?

 

[Will Rickards]

Okay I think I've eliminated the digitizer itself as the problem.
I opened the screen up and there was a connector with two parts. One was not connected.
I put that back and still same problem. I removed both of them and still same problem.
I tried to insulate the connector itself and still the same problem.
So I'm guessing the issue is on the other side? However this connects to the motherboard? It is in the last image below.

Open View
Panel Markings
LCD Connector
Touchscreen connector?

 

[Will Rickards]

It would behoove you to use something like Belarc Advisor to snag the Windows product key. Is this machine Standard or Pro?

As I said I think he wiped it with non-legit windows 8. So the product key is probably long gone. It looks like a fresh install with nothing on it.

 

[Will Rickards]

I think I was wrong, I think it was restored from recovery partition.
I disabled the touchscreen from device manager and no more problem.
I updated it to 8.1. But a SFC /SCANNOW doesn't seem to complete without issues though.