Last weekend, I had an issue with the touch screen on the family laptop. This not-quite-three-year-old device (running Windows 10) is on its second screen (the first one gave up after 13 months) and the laptop was working fine, just that the touch screen acted like, well, a screen (i.e. no touch).

Helpfully, both Adi Kingsley-Hughes (@the_pc_doc) and Jack Schofield (@jackschofield) chipped in with suggestions but it remained a mystery.

The issue persisted through a reboot (which does cast some doubt on the eventual “fix”) and Lenovo’s published drivers were woefully out-of-date but I found a Dell forum post with something that might have helped in some way:

“Think about it, if you are not using the touchscreen and keeping it active, in this energy efficient world and age, a system would turn off unnecessary devices!!

THE SOLUTION: Device Manager – Universal Serial Bus Controllers – Generic USB Hub Properties -( Under POWER tab: the one that has “HID-compliant Device 100mA” attached) Power Management – UNCHECK-“Allow computer to turn off this device to save power”

If you have problems or not sure if it the correct HID-compliant Device, just look under the Driver Details and hit the drop down box to scroll through all those different labels until it clearly says “Touchscreen” under “Bus Reported Device Description”

Fixed my problem pretty easily.” [Nate97]

I say “might”, because the results were not immediate – and if this worked, then why didn’t a reboot?

I also tried following advice from a Lenovo post and in Lenovo support article HT104469:

“1. Press Windows + X. Select Device Manager.

2. Find the Touch screen driver under Mice and Other Pointing Devices > USB Touchscreen Controller(A111).  You’re going to uninstall this and check the box that says “Delete the driver software for this device”. Restart your computer.

3. If the feature is still not back, open Device Manager -> Human Interface Devices. Right-click HID compliant touch screen, then uninstall. When you restart the PC, it will reinstall.

4. Or if you cannot locate any USB Touchscreen Controller(A111), please try to look for an option called “USB Root Hub (xHCI)” under USB Controllers or Universal Serial Bus. If it was labeled as disabled (a little faded or lighter shade of gray that means it is disabled). Righ-click on it then select enable. That may bring the touchscreen back.”

Again, it didn’t seem to make much difference and I went to bed with a non-functional touch screen; however, the next day the touch screen was working again, when I was ready to write this off as a hardware issue.  I’m not sure which (if either) of these “fixes” worked… but I’m posting this in case it helps someone else…