tomzxt

If you have a touch screen smart phone like me if may go bonkers sometimes. Mine was driving me nuts for the last two months pressing where ever it wanted to when I wasn't touching it. It was hit or miss if it wanted to work on any given day.

After about an hour of searching on the net I found one forum that solve my problem. Somebody started a thread describing the same problem I was having. After getting through what seemed like a hundred responses of me too there was one guy with a solution.

He said I had the same problem and what worked for me was putting anti bacterial gel on the screen to destroy the invisible layer of grime buildup that is on there making the touchscreen not work or ghost press where it wants to. I tried this figuring it can't hurt it anymore than it already is. Put a dab on, rubbed it in, let it sit for thirty seconds, then wiped it off. Like magic my phone worked like new again.

Before I did this trick the most used sections of the touchscreen (left side, bottom side, and back button) were not responding to touch at all as well as the ghost touches. After, all of the screen and buttons worked fine. From now on I will use this maintenance method about once every two weeks as the guy recommended. Thought I'd share it with all of you in case you are experiencing similar situations with your phones. I almost bought a new one because of this.

CrankenFine

Any particular brand or type of "anti-bacterial gel"?

Are you using a screen protector?

Tweety

Any microfiber rag to clean your glasses or camera or whatever will work just the same as long as it's clean... It's the fat fingerprints you need to remove... I thought this was common knowledge? Once in a while, using the type of alcohol based cleaning wipe for glasses/cameras is probably a decent idea, but not at all neccesary... I wouldn't use any liquid or gel on my phone, it's just too likely to get in somewhere and cause more damage than it helps...

It makes no difference if you use a screen protector or not... Think of it this way, the screen is sensing your finger because your finger conducts electicity, the grease on your finger helps it to "see the finger"... The grease stains on the computer acts like a conductor lying on the screen, put your finger somewhere near the grease stain, and the screen reads a large blob of miniscule electric activity going from your finger into the grease "conductor", instead of just your finger... Kind of hard for it to know what you are doing then, huh? The screen protector is just a thin layer of plastic that resists scratches, so any grease film on that will be just as confusing as if it where directly on the screen...

It works the opposite if your hands are dry and crackly, like in winter... It gets harder for the screen to read your finger... Go use a dab of lotion and let it dry before trying again, and you will see a difference...

BTW, it works the same for the touchpad on your laptop...

tomzxt

I do use a screen protector crankenfine. No particular brand. Other suggested using alcohol based cleaning products for electronics with the same results as well like Tweety. I just thought it was neat that a common thing you could ask a friend for like antibacterial gel would do the trick.

Thanks for the breakdown tweety. I wasn't positive on how the touch screen worked. I knew it picked up on some kind of signal sent from specifically the human finger. Just wasn't sure what. Thought maybe it was similar to this saw, in the link at the bottom, using the salt in our finger oil/sweat to register the strokes. I did use all kinds of cloths, including the one that comes with the screen protector application kit, to wipe the screen with quite vigorously to try to clear and grime. Didn't do the trick until I used the antibacterial gel.

SawStop Finger Demonstration - move over hot dog! - YouTube