Last Updated on December 4, 2019 by Christopher G Mendla
My Palm Zire 31 has been experiencing some drift in the digitizer which has required almost daily digitizer recalibration. Today it would not calibrate properly. No matter what I did, the point it though I was touching was about 1mm below where I was actually touching with the stylus. When I tried to calibrate and hit the targets, it would not calibrate. The only way to get out of that screen was to tap the top of the targets.
I did some checking and downloaded one of the software digitizer calibration fixes, Digifix. That behaved exactly like the built in digitizer calibrator. I tried removing the screen protector film and cleaning the screen with a damp cloth… No luck there either.
I have been keeping my Palm in an aluminum Palm case. Once in a while, I drop the Palm, either when it’s in its case or not in its case. I thought about it and decided a couple of taps on the top or bottom edge might work.
NOTE – This may damage your Palm or void your warranty. Use at your own risk. It might also put a ding in your beautiful dining room set so be careful.
Anyway, what I did was to open up the Note Pad application, which is really a drawing app. I could see that the lines were forming OK on the horizontal axis. I tapped the unit on either the top or bottom 3 times with a sharp but gentle tap(Unfortunately, I can’t remember which). The one way didn’t change anything so I tried the other way. IT WORKED!!!.
I re-ran the digitizer calibration and everything seems to be OK.
Keep in mind that this is probably only a temporary fix and may end up killing your handheld. On the other hand, I’m up to my ears in alligators so this will buy me some time.