My Nexus 5 has an erratic touch screen that jumps all over the place

Symptom: The Nexus 5 Android smartphone occasionally registers touchscreen clicks in the wrong place or when a click was not requested.  Turning the screen off and back on in a normal touchscreen recalibration maneuver does not prevent it from recurring.

Solution: Unplug the Nexus 5 from the USB charging cable while using it, or use a ferrite core USB charger cable (the kind with a round “wart” on the cable). Don’t replace your touch screen, as some users have mistakenly done!

Long answer: An erratic touchpad that seems to jump all over the screen is a problem with electromagnetic interference when the Nexus 5 is connected to a USB charger. There is a long Google bug thread here. The problem will not be fixed.

One Response to “My Nexus 5 has an erratic touch screen that jumps all over the place”

  1. […] The latter cable, having a ferrite RF choke, can also solve problems with touchscreen misbehavior while charging as observed on earlier revisions of the Google …. […]

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