Touch screen dead and a power issue after March 2019 update

[dgeasan]

After the "March 12, 2019—KB4489899 (OS Build 17763.379)" update on my one year old 15 inch Surface Book 2 the touch screen no longer works and the laptop will not completely power off.

I worked thru removing the touch screen driver and letting Windows reinstall it but no joy. The touch screen also is not responsive in the UEFI interface which according to the troubleshooter at "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023476/surface-touchscreen-problems-with-touch" means there is a hardware failure. However, I find this conclusion suspicious since the touchscreen failure and the power issue described below occurred after the update.

When I shutdown via either the button or Start/Power/Shutdown the machine does not completely power off. The keyboard backlight and "Fn" key light remain illuminated. I have to press and hold the power switch for nearly 30 seconds to completely power off. I found in "Control Panel/Power/Power Buttons" that the "Fast Startup" was disabled so I enabled that and now the laptop almost immediately powers completely down but to start the laptop I now have to press and hold the power button for nearly 30 seconds. So after the update "Fast Start" really means fast and complete shutdown but very slow start up. I didn't have this behavior before the update.

Anyhow, just curious if anyone else has encountered this and welcome suggestions/solutions. Thanks in advance.

 

[jnjroach]

Try this - Hold the Power Button down while booted up until you see the slide down to power off - continue holding the power button down until it goes to a command prompt asking you to wait - it will run through a percentage countdown and then will power off - restart it after and see if that fixes anything....

 

[dgeasan]

No joy. The machine just turns off. I don't see the countdown. I do see "slide down to power off " and I just kept holding the power button down.

As an update:

When "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\System Settings\Turn on Fast Start" is disabled:

1. Machine does not shut down unless I hold down the power button for about 30 seconds.
2. Machine starts within a second after pressing power button.
3. In Device Manager:
   1. System Devices\Intel Management Engine Interface displays a yellow caution icon
   2. Human Interface Devices\HID-compliant touch screen (2 of these) are visible
   3. Human Interface Devices\Intel Precise Touch Device is visible

When "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\System Settings\Turn on Fast Start" is enabled:

1. Machine shuts down within seconds pressing power button or Start/Power/Shutdown.
2. I have to press the power key down for nearly 30 seconds to start the computer.
3. In Device Manager:
   1. System Devices\Intel Management Engine Interface is hidden
   2. Human Interface Devices\HID-compliant touch screen (2 of these) are hidden
   3. Human Interface Devices\Intel Precise Touch Device is hidden

Counter intuitive but there it is.

 

[jnjroach]

Interesting - on older builds you had to hold the volume rocker up while holding the power button...

 

[dgeasan]

You still do that starting gymnastic to access the UEFI screen. Simultaneously hold down the power button and the plus "+" side of the volume button for about 30 seconds. And I've done that several time but no touch screen and the power down/power up action is all wrong. On the positive side, with "Fast Start" Enabled acting opposite from what's expected, I'll no longer accidentally turn the laptop on while moving it around in the carrying case.

 

[dgeasan]

Additional weirdness.

I discovered another problem related to the March 2019 OS update, in addition to the touchscreen and power issues described earlier, the BitLocker app had been turned on without my knowledge and my entire drive C had been encrypted!! I learned of this when I tried to boot the laptop into SafeMode. I have never encrypted a drive and I'm sure had never turned that on. The BitLocker Manager app is one I had never used until I had to figure out how to turn BitLocker off.

A couple days ago I ran the "SurfaceDiagnosticToolkit_SA.exe" tool as recommended by Microsoft. After a couple tests the app had me restart the laptop. After the restart the touchscreen was working! I ran thru all the tests and the app declared that nothing was wrong with the Surface Book 2. I then restarted. No touchscreen. I re-ran "SurfaceDiagnosticToolkit_SA.exe" and had the same experience, touchscreen alive during the testing, then dead after reboot. On third run of "SurfaceDiagnosticToolkit_SA.exe" the touchscreen was no longer responsive.

This morning my Logitech dongle connected mouse was no longer responsive. After several attempts of removing and inserting the dongle into the same USB port used for the past year, I finally moved the dongle to a different USB port. Windows installed a driver. The touchscreen suddenly was alive. Restarted the computer. Touchscreen once again dead.

So I think it's reasonable to conclude I have a driver issue that is the result of the March 2019 OS update.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. But I'm guessing I'm at the point of having to reinstall the OS.

Which is really an unacceptable solution.

Microsoft has been in the business of operating systems for how long? +30 years? And they still can't get this stuff right??!! The benefits of nearly being a monopoly.

Automatic updates to the OS without an easy and understandable method to opt out and choose when and what OS updates to install on my PERSONAL computer is simply unacceptable. Especially given that there is a plethora of anecdotal evidence that these updates eventually lead to a corruption of the OS.

 

[jnjroach]

All Surface devices ship with disk encryption out of the box - this is a requirement for all Windows devices that support the S0iX (AKA - Connected Standby). You will find this from all OEMs.

Why the behavior with touchscreen is beyond me...have you investigated if you have a startup app or service that is disabling the Touchscreen Digitizer?