My main family-room TSU3000 touchscreen wedged up today exactly as described, leaving me with a dead Pronto and a *very* frustrated wife. I pulled it apart and cleaned the connectors and display, with no success. However, doing the needle-to-the-bond-site trick on the ribbon cable's termination on the display did indeed do the trick. Amazing. It's back up and running. I've now swapped it out for one of the less-used Prontos in another (brightly-lit) part of the house...

This is almost certain to be a temporary fix only: the comments about humidity levels affecting the unit are very telling, and poking holes into the previously-hermetic bonds between the polyimide cable and the underlying printed traces on the display will almost certainly lead to their eventual deterioration. Well, I have no problem with that. They were clearly deteriorating in any case, as was the backlight (which is now really too dim to use in the dark). The unit's next stop was the dumpster, so it was worth doing something that is likely to be detrimental to the unit's health. I believe that Philips has a manufacturing process issue with these bonded terminations, and that that's likely to worsen with time on all my units. So, I'd believe that folks can probably expect to see more and more of these issues. The needle hack is a useful tip: thanks to the folks who came up with it.

I've ordered a replacement TSU3000 from the Philips outlet, staving off the inevitable migration to something else for a little bit longer. However, after this, the all-important SAF (Spousal Approval Factor) is in the toilet, so that schedule may yet get changed...

I have 2 more tips about unresponsive touchscreen.

If the bateries are low or your rechargeble pack is old can also cause this, try to download new firmware with new pack and recalibrate.

The 90 degree angle that the touchsreen ribon makes in the glass sometimes causes the problem. You can try the needle routine but I did something different. With a dremel w/ the sandpaper tip, I exposed the metal contact and soldered the surface in the angle area and the control came to life. Working for 3 weeks until now

Philips is selling refurbished 3000s for 125.99usd at their outlet shop. So fixing units is lost of time, unless you are out of the USA, where they are expensive.

I was able to put a touchscreen from a palm top and make it worked in a 3000. I don't know what palm was it from yet. I got 3 broken screens for free from a shop in my town and one of them worked. I will back there to check if they have more and what was that from.

I had 3 broken 3000s until last month, now all are working. Two of them were moded to use led light and one. One them only has the OEM LCD, light and touchscren are from palm tops.

Skodises,

It is possible to adapt led light from palms to the 3000. It's a hard job to do that. So I only recomend if you love to fix things or if you are outside of the USA and the prontos cost a lot in your area.

You will need a broken screen from a palm (with similar size of the 3000, you will need a dremel to make space for the new light panel, you will need a capacitor, four diodes and a photovoltaic relay. The result is fantastic. I hate philips for not use led light in the 3000.I have 2 units moded and the OEM one's are garbage compared with this teh modeds. I think they want to push refurbs on us.

Hhhiiiihhhaaaa...... :-)

I had this same problem, took it apart and cleaned the contact points. Now it is working again. Thanks a lot :-)

Jarle

Another one bites the dust! Today my TSU 3000 died the same, ugly, touchscreen death that has been so well documented heretofore. I purchased it used off eBay in Jan. 2006. S/N is 73471204.

I have successfully disassembled the remote and will be trudging over to Radio Shack for some contact cleaner in the morning.

Update: Disassembled and did the eraser thingy - no change. Then I tried pushing relatively hard on all the contacts and pushing the ribbon back in under the glass and the screen responded.

However, now I am stuck with the calibration failing at the third corner every time. I have tried firmware 3.9.8 as well as the lastest ver. 3.9.12 from Philips. Have upgraded/downgraded firmware so many times my head is spinning. Finally pulled the battery about 3 AM and went to bed in hopes that it will have reconsidered its attitude after 6 or 7 hours of no juice at all. Thanks heavens I still have my old trusty TS2000.

AHA! Once again I owe a debt of gratitude to the RC Community. Went out & got some contact cleaner & tried that, but still couldn't get past the calibration failure at the third point (upper right). So, figuring at this point that I had very little else to lose, I pricked the contacts several times each with a needle sharp awl, and....
after one more failed calibration attempt, it completed calibration and is now back among the living. Downloaded my .pcf back into the Pronto and all is happy. It's now running 3.9.8 firmware, and I'm not too eager to try upgrading at this point - somthing about leaving well enough alone.

Thanks again to all who contributed to this massive thread, and especially those who took matters into their own hands to find a solution rather than depend on the oxymoron that seems to be Philips' idea of customer support. Oh, and a special thanks to Philips for making such a wonderful product and doing such an exemplary job of supporting it...NOT!

I started having the screen lockup problem about six months ago. It would sporadically lockup the screen, and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I upgraded to the latest firmware and started having the calibration error where it wouldn't go past the right upper corner. After reading this forum. I figured I'd had nothing to lose so I tried the pin technique and punctured several holes in each of the four contact points in the upper right corner of the screen after the housing had been removed. I couldn't believe that it actually worked. The calibration worked perfectly the first time after putting the housing back together. Thanks to all who posted in this thread.

I will certainly think twice about purchasing another Philips product given the extremely poor customer support, or lack thereof.

Mine died today as well. Followed the instructions for the ribbon puncturing technique, and was up and running in less than a half hour! Thanks to you guys!

Mine died today. After reading this thread, I found that pressing the blue plastic frame to the right of the "pronto" logo got the screen working again. So I'm expecting that the puncture-the-contacts-with-a-needle trick will resolve this issue until those contacts corrode.

Regardless, I'm APPALLED at the lack of response by Philips!!! Prontoteam, are you listening? You have a design/manufacturing problem that you must own. Based on what I've seen in this thread, you are looking at the short-term cost vs. long-term customer satisfaction/retention. I will always purchase from a company that works hard to retain my business. I will NEVER purchase another Philips product... not even lightbulbs!

Attention!! I was able to put a TSU3000 with a broken touchscreen working again with an HP iPAQ 1945 touchscreen. The panel is smaller than the original but will do. Link to buy the touchscreen:


[Link: gethightech.com]

Well, after about a year (see my post #134 in this thread), my touchscreen has quit again. I tried cleaning the contacts again on the two side connectors, cleaning the metal strip at the top and bottom of the screen and using contact cleaner. Nothing seemed to work this time with the exception of the tip from fransvdmb about using a needle to prick the four contacts on the top right connector on the screen. That did the trick. Obviously the method Philips is using to connect the ribbon to the screen is inferior.

Kudos to fransvdmb for the tip. I absolutely love my TSU3000 and I hated the thought of actually spending money to replace it.

Tony Bongiorno

This thread should be made a sticky, especially the summary provided by fransvdmb. This got my TSU3000 working immediately!!!!!

It Worked!!!!! After more than a year and a half, I tried your solution, and it worked. Thanks for the info. If you run into any more problems, or fixes, please let me know.

c500capt

Worked first time for me, followed fransvdmb summary - thanks