Nooooooooo.... iPAQ touchscreen loses touch...

So... Friday I turn off my RadioTiki Podcast on the iPaq and slip it into my coat pocket and head into the house. Later that night everybody is out and I go to get the iPaq to update my music. I turn it on and tap the screen to turn the wireless on and nothing happens... I tap it again, nothing. I quickly use the control pad and make my way to the align screen application. Still nothing it wont register a screen touch :o(

I soft reset it and still no touch. I go and back up the iPaq and hit the hard Reset. Now its worse I am stuck at the welcome screen that says "tap the screen to set up your pocketPC". I tap, it does nothing. I press the selectino button and it takes me to the align screen set up screen. Now I am dead in the water.

I get online with HP and the guy has me soft and hard reset, download the latest ROM update and install that... of course nothing works. We get around to ok you need to send it in for repair. Cool, is it covered be warranty. We check the serial number... Your warranty ran out August 6th... Dread... bummer. Can I close the call... Pshsh, sure I click the close call button.

I look around for do it your self fixes. the cheapest will be 85$ for a touch screen since its not cracked. That does not include instructions(why?) and they say that this is the hardest repair to do. Or $104 to send it to them and have them do it. So I do some more searching on how to get around the align screen to at least have a little usability untill I can get it repaired and I can't find a thing. It will be Christmas if I am lucky to get it repaired so much for the GPS I was hoping to get for it.

So over the weekend I keep trying hard resets to see if it would pop back to life. I also read that sometimes the cable can come loose for the screen. So I hold my breath and remove the screws and pop open the case. Everything is so small. Then the camera cable comes unplugged, that was easy enough to plug back in though. I find the screen cable and unplug and replug but it is still not working. I see something else that says that there can be wear on the cable also. So by sunday I have taken almost the whole thing apart and put it back together and it stil "works".

Sunday night again everybody falls out and I am looking for screen repair tips. I come accross away around the align screen.
1. Do a hard reset
2. Sync with the PC, making a generic partnership
3. On the PC browse to the iPAQ. Windows/welcome.exe(or whatever the file extension is) and delete it.
4. Soft reset the iPAQ and wahoo we are the iPAQs desktop.

Now you can use a remote connection application to control your pocketPC from your PC and another application called FakeCursor to use the "d-pad' like a mouse pad on a laptop.

So now I can use the iPaq again untill I get the repair done. I can't play my Worms game as it requires taps to set up games but I can do everything else. Text entry is the other slow part...

All though this puppy is pretty sweet HP iPAQ rx5915 Travel Companion