"Tom" is about to get the boot. Please help!

[cmoverton]

Please help! My TomTom (Cleverly named, Tom) has been acting up and I don't know what to do. I noticed in wintertime when I would touch the screen anywhere, the left side of the screen would light up and select. Even if I was all the way to the right of it. I assumed it was the cold temp as once he warmed up he was fine again. Now this summer he is doing it again. I can't select anything on the screen other than what is immediately on the left no matter where I press. Again I assumed it was temp so I cooled him off. Didn't work. So I brought him inside, let him sit for a few hours then stuck him in the fridge. (Not the freezer) After about an hour, he was up and running!! I left him in the house (out of the fridge) and the next morning, again, only left side selects. I read somewhere about particles getting stuck around the frame so I checked that. Nothing. I even just took the factory screen protector off minutes ago because that was suggested as well. Nothing. There was also something about moisture... how can I check for that without completely ruining him? Sorry for the long post but I don't know what to do and I have a road trip in 3 days. Tom is about to take a little trip all by himself to the dump if I can't fix him... Your help is appreciated!!!

 

[dhn]

You may wish to read this long and VERY detailed link about screen calibration. It may be the issue in your case:

http://www.yourtomtom.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12622&st=20&#entry111225

But do NOT put the unit in a fridge!!

 

[cmoverton]

Haha! Thank you. I will read up on it. And I knew I would get scolded at some point for the fridge. I was desperate and I figured he didn't work as it was...figured I couldn't do much worse than that.

 

[dhn]

Put your Ipad or Iphone in the fridge and it probably won't work well either.......

 

[canderson]

Apart from the possibility of attempting to run them on battery, no reason why it should bother them at all. Even then, a typical 35F fridge temperature will at least give you a little run time. Most electronics don't mind cold. Might slow down the LCD response a little is all.

 

[dhn]

Well, it was (or is) the screen response issue the OP is concerned about.

 

[canderson]

Sounds to me like his issue is with the digitizer, not the LCD.

 

[cmoverton]

Originally I thought the extreme cold of Chicago winters did something to it because in the spring and fall it's typically ok. Then the extreme heat of Missouri (we moved) maybe melted something inside. My fault for leaving it in the glove box. It has also done it while I'm driving and it's affixed to the window in the sun. It worked fine but when I went to change the settings a couple hours into my trip, the screen started doing it again. And I tried to follow the directions from the link posted above but I can't get to settings because of the screen issues.

 

[canderson]

The sort of extremes of temperature to which you have subjected your TomTom are nothing unusual. While Chicago feels cold, that's just the humidity talking. There are units in much colder places than Chicago that behave well enough. So you didn't do anything bad there. Ditto Missouri. Grew up there. "Hot" is largely a function of how the humidity feels there as well, not the actual temperature. I'm a total humidity weenie now that I've lived in Colorado a few years. We had a couple of weeks recently where we were talking 100F plus most days. My units aren't in direct sun very often (I don't windshield mount them), but they got good and baked in the car all the same. Leaving one in your glove box wasn't a bad thing, either.

It sounds as though you have at some point removed the entire surround bezel from the face of your unit and have seen no help from that. I wouldn't expect that to help, though. The problem the bezel creates are "phantom" key presses when the bezel comes into contact with the glass enough to record the contact as a key press.

In your case, there are two possibilities. One is that the digitizer on your unit has begun to fail due to a sort of 'delamination', and the other is that the main board itself has begun to fail. I don't hold out much hope for a calibration change. That only shifts the sensed point of contact around the screen a bit. Your problem sounds more serious.

All I can suggest is that you consider the value to you of your old ONE 3rd (it is a 2007 device, after all, and has very limited memory - a mere 1GB - to store map data). I question just how much longer you will even be able to update the map for that unit before you have to start selecting which part of the country you want to load. Frankly, I'm amazed that they're still finding a way to fit any US/Canada map into that thing in 1GB these days.

You could take a $35 or $40 risk and see if a new combo digitizer/LCD resolves the problem, but if it does not, you're out the $35~$40 on a unit that you may find yourself wanting to replace soon enough anyway.

 

[cmoverton]

Thank you, canderson, you have been very helpful. My husband, father-in-law, and I sat down with it at lunch today and came about to the same conclusion you did. So I think we are just going to scrap it and buy a new one. I am relieved to know it was not due to the cold and my negligence with keeping it in the car. I too felt that a device that primarily stays in a car outside should be able to withstand changing temps. So again, thank you. We will be GPS shopping this weekend. Stay cool in the heat.