Symptoms

Surface 3 devices may intermittently experience phantom/ghost touch input on the left side
of the screen. This input may disrupt running applications or interfere with usage of the
device.
Some devices may only experience a few random touches on the left side of the screen and
it may stop for periods of time. Other devices may experience continuous random touches
on the left side of the screen.
Note: If the random touches are being registered all over the screen and not just the left
side, the solution in this KB may not resolve the issue and the issue may be due to physical
damage, installed software, or nearby electromagnetic interference.

Cause
This issue can occur because of a problem with the touch screen calibration of the device.

Resolution
We have a touch calibration tool available that should resolve this issue.
There are 2 versions of the touch calibration tool. Standalone version and USB bootable
version. The Standalone version requires you to login to Windows and manually run the tool.
The USB bootable version allows you to boot the Surface 3 from a USB flash drive and it
automatically runs the tool for you and reboots back to Windows when its complete.
Note: This tool saves calibration information to the touch firmware and is not changing any
settings in Windows. Customers can re-image the device or reinstall Windows, and they
should not need to run the tool again.

More Information
These are the instructions for using each version of the touch calibration tool.

Standalone version
You must be able to login to Windows to run the tool to resolve the issue. If you are unable to
login and navigate in Windows using a keyboard and mouse or touchpad, you should be able
to stop the random touches on the left side of the screen by placing the palm of your hand
on the left side of the device screen.
Once you are in Windows, if the random touches are causing the Start Menu or items on the
taskbar to open randomly, you can right click the taskbar and turn off Lock the Taskbar
and then click and drag the taskbar to the right side of the screen temporarily.
Installing and executing the touch calibration tool
Note: This must only be used on a Surface 3, do not use this on any other Surface device.
1. Extract the downloaded ZIP file to a folder. You will then see a MSI file and this
document.

2. Copy the Surface3_TouchCalibration_Win8x_Win10_151211_2.msi file to a USB flash

drive or onto a Surface 3
3. Run the MSI file, it will choose a default directory to copy files to, you can change
that. Its only extracting the files that you need to run the tool later, it wont run the
tool yet.
4. If you are going to run the tool on another Surface 3, copy the folder with 3 DLL files
and CalibG4.exe to a USB flash drive.
5. Make sure the Surface 3 device meets the following conditions before running the
tool, otherwise you may not get good touch calibration and you may have to run the
tool again.
a. The device has at least 25% battery power.
b. The power supply is disconnected and the device is running on battery power.

c. Nothing is plugged into the USB port

d. The device is at room temperature.

e. Florescent lighting or other bright lighting is not pointed directly at the device
screen.
f. VERY IMPORTANT: Do not touch the screen while the tool is running.
6. Open a Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where the 4 files were copied
earlier. You will see 3 DLL files and CalibG4.exe.
7. Run CalibG4.exe from the Command Prompt and wait until the calibration process has
completed and reports PASS. It could take 1-2 minutes to complete the calibration.
If you still experience phantom touches, you can run the CalibG4 tool again and make sure
the conditions in Step 5 are met.
If the device freezes/locks up while running the tool, or the tool does not finish with the
message PASS, you will need to hold down the power button for 30 seconds to turn off the
device, then turn it back on, and then try the CalibG4 tool again.

USB bootable version

This version of the tool is useful if you cannot login to Windows to run the Standalone
version, or if you are running the tool on multiple Surface 3 devices.
Create a bootable USB flash drive
1. Format a USB flash drive, choosing FAT32 as the file system
2. Extract the downloaded ZIP file to a folder. You will then see a USB_bootable.ZIP file
and this document.
3. Extract the USB_Bootable.ZIP file to a folder
4. Copy the contents of the USB_Bootable.ZIP file to the USB flash drive. Once the files
are copied to the flash drive, you will see 4 directories named Boot, EFI, en-us, and
sources, 2 files named bootmgr and bootmgr.efi.
Executing the tool from the USB flash drive
Note: This must only be used on a Surface 3, do not use this on any other Surface device.
1. Shutdown Windows and ensure the Surface 3 device is off.
2. Make sure the Surface 3 device meets the following conditions before booting it from
the USB flash drive, otherwise you may not get good touch calibration and you may
have to run the tool again.
a. The device has at least 25% battery power.

b. The power supply is disconnected and the device is running on battery power.
c. Nothing is plugged into the USB port, except the USB flash drive (dont use a
USB hub)
d. The device is at room temperature.
e. Florescent lighting or other bright lighting is not pointed directly at the device
screen.
f. VERY IMPORTANT: Do not touch the screen while the tool is running.
3. Boot from the USB flash drive by holding down the Volume Down button and pressing
the Power button to turn on the device. Continue holding down the Volume Down
button until you see the Surface logo, then release all buttons. You should then stop
touching the device until the calibration is complete.
4. It will take a few minutes to boot up and start the touch calibration process. This
process will be completely automated, No interaction with the tool will be required.
5. Once its completed, it will report Calibration Passed and prompt you to remove the
USB flash drive and press Enter to reboot. If you dont have a Surface keyboard
attached, you can touch the X in the top right corner of the tool window and that will
reboot the Surface.
If you still experience phantom touches, you can use the steps above to run the tool again
and make sure the conditions in Step 2 are met.