# tablet pen isn't working?



## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

So this week I bought the Trust Slimline Design TB-5300. I downloaded the newest drivers from trust.com and plugged the tablet in my pc. The pen was acting weird first, but after a while it worked without any problems.

Now, the TB-5300 was too small for me imo, so I exchanged it for the TB-6300. I uninstalled the drivers of the TB-5300, downloaded the newest drivers of the TB-6300 from trust.com again, installed it, and plugged in the TB-6300.

And that's where things get weird. The pen of the tablet isn't working _at all._ The tablet mouse that's included with the TB-6300 is working fine though. But the pen isn't.

I've uninstalled, re-downloaded and re-installed the TB-6300 drivers several times without any results. It just won't work.

All I can think off is that the pen might be broken or something. Is this most likely the case, or could it be something else too?

And I use Vista btw.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*



The Wave said:


> And I use Vista btw.



Ouch... you have our condolences.

Well, the problem can be only one of two things - driver or hardware.  Even though you uninstalled the original drivers, a Windows uninstall isn't exactly very good.  They tend to still leave the directories in which the files were installed to, and often a lot of the files themselves.  The first thing I would try is to uninstall the drivers, then open up Windows Explorer and go to the directory(s) that the program installs the files to and make SURE all of them are deleted.  When all the files and directories are completely gone, use a good registry scrubber like the Wise Registry Cleaner to prune out any orphaned registry entries that might be left behind referring to the files you just removed (Windows is pretty bad about maintaining it's registry too).

Now, if that doesn't work, I'd start wondering if there's hardware issue with the pen.  One way to test that would be to try booting up your PC on a LiveCD version of Linux.  I would recommend using Linux Mint 8.  I'm not sure if the brand of tablet you have is supported, I've not heard of it before, but I know it supports all the wacoms.  Boot up the system on the LiveCD and first see if the mouse works via the tablet, if it does, then the pen will work too.  If the pen doesn't work, but the mouse does (same as in Windows) you may have a broken pen.

Last but not least, you could also try installing it on another system that's not had any tablet on before, just to see if it's a more complex issue with the drivers.  If that's the case, and my first suggestion didn't clean the drivers up, you may have to contact their support site to find out precisely where every file gets installed and remove all of them (IE, some might be installed in the Windows/system32 directory or other locations you didn't look originally).


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## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*

Yep, cursed vista....

I never used Linux, so a question about that LiveCD Linux Mint: Do I need to download the ISO and just burn it on a CD or DVD, or do I need a special CD or what? And then it's just a matter of putting the disk in the drive and reboot the pc, right?

Also, do I need to install the Tablet drivers (I assume I have to) and/or other drivers to make the tablet working in Linux mint? Or can I just plug in and use the tablet?


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## ToeClaws (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*

You just download the ISO and burn the image to a CD.  The CD is self-booting, and will automatically put you into the desktop of Mint.  Drivers for hardware are preloaded into the OS, so you shouldn't have to put in any additional ones.  I like I said though, I know it works for Wacoms, but I'm not sure about the type that you have.  Given that Linux has more support out of the box for hardware than any other OS though, there's a good chance it'll work okay.  

The LiveCD also doesn't install anything on your drive or affect your system in any way, so once you shut it down and restart, you can pop out the CD and go back to Vista normally.


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## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*

mkay, then I'll try that first.... I tried finding some files from the tablets, and I DID find a file from the first tablet. Sad news is that I found out that the drivers are installed in \windows and \windows\system32, and I tend to not mess up those files.


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## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*

Okay, I tried using Linux Mint, but I couldn't even get there. I got the automatic boot screen, a few dos things were happening, and then black screen. And then it shuts itself off, and I couldn't restart it for 5-10 minutes.
>__>'

I guess I'll test it on my parents pc tomorrow....


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## ToeClaws (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*



The Wave said:


> Okay, I tried using Linux Mint, but I couldn't even get there. I got the automatic boot screen, a few dos things were happening, and then black screen. And then it shuts itself off, and I couldn't restart it for 5-10 minutes.
> >__>'
> 
> I guess I'll test it on my parents pc tomorrow....



Whoa... can't say I've ever seen that happen before. :shock:  Must be something very proprietary about the system, or a bug in the particular hardware combo.  

Yeah, give it a try on your Folk's system, and if you can, try to find a list of where all the files are getting installed.  I know it gives you an uneasy feeling mucking around in the System32 directory, but if you know precisely what you're after, then you won't hurt anything.


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## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

Most likely my pc (or laptop, I should say). It's almost 2 years old, and now with the sucky Vista, it has been getting slower and crashing a lot lately. Already got 10 blue screens this month, and 5 before in a half year.

So yeah, I don't know if it's a software/Vista or a hardware problem, but there is *SOMETHING* pretty wrong with my pc. Which might give the tablet problems.


Anyway, yeah, I'll see what I can do with that....


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## ToeClaws (Feb 7, 2010)

The Wave said:


> Most likely my pc (or laptop, I should say). It's almost 2 years old, and now with the sucky Vista, it has been getting slower and crashing a lot lately. Already got 10 blue screens this month, and 5 before in a half year.
> 
> So yeah, I don't know if it's a software/Vista or a hardware problem, but there is *SOMETHING* pretty wrong with my pc. Which might give the tablet problems.
> 
> ...



Hmm... yeah, that doesn't sound good.  Much as Vista does suck, it is at least stable enough that you shouldn't see that so often.  On that live CD, you might have noticed on the boot menu that one of the options was to run MemTest86 - I would suggest trying that.  It will test the system's memory (and thus also the memory bus on the motherboard) for any issues.  It might be the first indicator of what's wrong.  Bad ram can be replaced, but issues on the motherboard itself will require a new board, and that gets pricey with a laptop.

That might also explain why the CD didn't boot the system - from my experiences, Linux and the BSD Unix's tend to be a lot more sensitive and aware of hardware issues, and will either inform you of them, or just not install/boot.  Anyway, give the memory tester a try and see what you find.


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## The Wave (Feb 7, 2010)

There was no menu when I started the LiveCD; it immediately went to an automatic boot countdown and then prepared and initialized everything....

Also, if Linux is indeed sensitive to hardware issues, then I guess I should be glad since that might mean there's nothing wrong with the tablet pen....
Hey, I hate this laptop, I would be glad to get a new one with Windows 7.


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## Greykitty (Feb 8, 2010)

If you could just reformat your computer with win 7 your tablet would probably have a good chance of working ok, or if you could reformat and just roll back to XP, that's what I would have done if I had not been able to get a copy of 7.  I got it free with my laptop since I bought it during the free upgrade period.  I hated Vista, it BSODed on me so much, I had issues with my Wacom on it and photoshop.  DX  
7 DOES have some driver compatibility issues but I have a 64bit system so it might be different on 32bit.  Not sure what you're running on.  Good luck with it though!


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## ToeClaws (Feb 8, 2010)

The Wave said:


> There was no menu when I started the LiveCD; it immediately went to an automatic boot countdown and then prepared and initialized everything....



Just hit any of the cursor keys or spacebar during that countdown and the menu will appear (I forgot they went to a countdown screen by default now).



The Wave said:


> Also, if Linux is indeed sensitive to hardware issues, then I guess I should be glad since that might mean there's nothing wrong with the tablet pen....
> Hey, I hate this laptop, I would be glad to get a new one with Windows 7.



Much as Windows is a poor OS, Windows 7 is a better option than Vista.  As Greykitty said, you're better off to either run XP or Windows 7 than Vista.  If the hardware tests run okay on your laptop, then it would be well worth considering changing the OS to one of the two other Windows versions.


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## lilEmber (Feb 8, 2010)

Why are you people fixating on the OS? Vista is fine; it's not the OS that's the issue here.

"I have an issue with this tablet's pen"

"Ok well install a different operating system"

"That didn't work too well"

"Install another operating system then"


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## CAThulu (Feb 8, 2010)

*Re: tablet pen iisn't working?*



NewfDraggie said:


> Why are you people fixating on the OS? Vista is fine; it's not the OS that's the issue here.
> 
> "I have an issue with this tablet's pen"
> 
> ...




You're jumping the shark, Newf.  See this post.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 8, 2010)

Newf - read threads first, _then_ comment.  And bring back your footpaw avatar, dammit. 

CAThulu - awesome sig. :mrgreen:


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## The Wave (Feb 8, 2010)

Well, looks like there's good news (well, from what you can call "good"). It's not my laptops problem.
I installed the tablet on my parents pc (which is XP btw), and it got the EXACT same results: the tablet mouse worked flawless, but the tablet pen wasn't responding _at all._
So yeah, it's NOT a Vista, driver, my laptop or whatever problem. The tablet pen is just malfunctioning.

So yeah, tomorrow I'll go back to the shop to trade it for a new one.



Greykitty said:


> If you could just reformat your computer with win 7 your tablet would probably have a good chance of working ok, or if you could reformat and just roll back to XP, that's what I would have done if I had not been able to get a copy of 7. I got it free with my laptop since I bought it during the free upgrade period. I hated Vista, it BSODed on me so much, I had issues with my Wacom on it and photoshop. DX
> 7 DOES have some driver compatibility issues but I have a 64bit system so it might be different on 32bit. Not sure what you're running on. Good luck with it though!


Believe or not, but I would've bought Windows 7 when I saw it in the shops a few weeks ago. But I simply didn't because of the many crashes (mainly the blue screens), which COULD be mainly Vista. But what if it's a hardware problem? Yeah. Wasted money.
So yeah, as I said, I'll wait till either (after) summer, which is when I need my laptop for real again, or until my laptop completely crashes for real.




ToeClaws said:


> Just hit any of the cursor keys or spacebar during that countdown and the menu will appear (I forgot they went to a countdown screen by default now).
> 
> Much as Windows is a poor OS, Windows 7 is a better option than Vista.  As Greykitty said, you're better off to either run XP or Windows 7 than Vista.  If the hardware tests run okay on your laptop, then it would be well worth considering changing the OS to one of the two other Windows versions.


Ah, I see. I'll remember that for next time.

I know, see above response why I keep up with this laptop for a little while. And even if it's not a hardware problem (though I might try it anyway), this laptop wasn't exactly new when I bought it, so it's pretty much outdated now. Even for several school stuff it's not suited anymore.

Damn technology is developing way too fast.




NewfDraggie said:


> Why are you people fixating on the OS? Vista is fine; it's not the OS that's the issue here.
> 
> "I have an issue with this tablet's pen"
> 
> ...


More like:

"I have an issue with this tablet's pen"

"Ok well install a different operating system"

"That didn't work too well, pc crashed"

"Buy a new pc, and while your at it, try another operating system"


But yeah, it wasn't Vista THIS time.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 8, 2010)

The Wave said:


> I know, see above response why I keep up with this laptop for a little while. And even if it's not a hardware problem (though I might try it anyway), this laptop wasn't exactly new when I bought it, so it's pretty much outdated now. Even for several school stuff it's not suited anymore.



Well, depends - for me, technology is not obsolete until it cannot continue to adapt to and efficiently perform it's primary functions.  My laptop is going on 6 years old, and it is now approaching obsolescence to me because I cannot add more RAM, and repairs and maintenance are becoming more/too frequent.

No matter what though, it always comes down to cost - laptops (good ones anyway) are expensive, so I can't really afford to drop $2K on one more than every 5 to 6 years any. >_<


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## The Wave (Feb 8, 2010)

True to that. But I don't need the newest of the newest laptop. I can't afford that, and I don't need one THAT good. I just need a better one right now.

Also, 4GB RAM is MORE than enough for a laptop IMO.

I got this one for c.a. â‚¬666 which was cheap for that laptop at that time (but now expensive, obviously), and I've already seen laptops where I can pull of even better ones for lower prices.
So yeah. I guess I'm lucky with this one. But I'll see how much longer I can keep up with this one first.


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## ToeClaws (Feb 9, 2010)

The Wave said:


> True to that. But I don't need the newest of the newest laptop. I can't afford that, and I don't need one THAT good. I just need a better one right now.



*nodsnods* Agreed - in fact, I often recommend people get a used off-lease business or workstation-class laptop that's a couple years old rather than a cheap new one.  The cost is about the same, but the quality of the hardware is much better.



The Wave said:


> Also, 4GB RAM is MORE than enough for a laptop IMO.



*nods* Agreed.  Unless the laptop is serving as serious, high-end portable workstation doing some very intensive stuff, there's no way you need more than 4 gigs.


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## The Wave (Feb 9, 2010)

Well, I exchanged the tablet for a new one, and it's working fine now. Yay me! =^_^= 
*Goes train with the tablet*



ToeClaws said:


> *nodsnods* Agreed - in fact, I often recommend people get a used off-lease business or workstation-class laptop that's a couple years old rather than a cheap new one.  The cost is about the same, but the quality of the hardware is much better.
> 
> *nods* Agreed.  Unless the laptop is serving as serious, high-end portable workstation doing some very intensive stuff, there's no way you need more than 4 gigs.


Yep. That's exactly how I got this one. That's mostly the best deal.
Though some shops here are giving good deals recently too...

I would even go as far to say that 3GB is more than enough if it doesn't have Vista. But I guess the extra GB is just for the case you happen to need a little more.


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## Sho-Oxide (Feb 14, 2010)

I hate to be terribly obvious, but the first thought I had was 'if the pen is wireless, have you put new batteries in it?' 
You seem to know what you're doing in general, but thought I'd point this out anyway. Sorry for being so simple. :<
Sometimes my tablet pen doesn't work because the batteries are flat.


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## Drazar (Feb 18, 2010)

that's one thing i like about Linux almost never have to get any software to get hardware working most of it is plug and play =P


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