Surface Pen Not Working? Here’s How You Can Fix It

The surface pen is an excellent addition by Microsoft for their Surface Pro, Go and Laptops. It helps the user to take note, write content or prepare a project without any use of the keyboard. But occasionally users of Surface Pen face issues related to its functioning. It is observed that sometimes Surface pen is unable to work properly on the Surface, only the eraser is functioning, but you are unable to write with it at all.

You may encounter various problems like Surface pen drivers not responding, the led light is not working, or the buttons work, but the pen won’t write. Most of the common issues occur due to the battery problem, so always look out for replacing the battery of the pen before coming to any conclusion. You can check out the easy fix options below to make your Surface Pen usable again.

Look out for the Battery

One of the major causes of facing issues with your Surface Pen is low batteries. Sometimes the battery of your Surface Pen is dead, and you may be unable to use your pen due to it. You should try to remove the old batteries and replace it with new two AA batteries, which will resolve such issue.

Sometimes users place the battery upside down which prevents the power access for your Surface Pen, so take out the batteries and flip them once and reinsert it to complete the circuit. One of the reasons could be that there is carbon or dust present on the battery slot terminals, so what you can do is remove the battery and clean the positive and negative terminals. When the terminals are clean, reinsert the batteries back, and hopefully, your Surface pen will start to work again.

Try pairing your Surface Pen again

Sometimes the Surface Pen can malfunction, and the pairing of the Surface Pen fails. What you can do is remove the paired Surface device and pair it again so that the glitch can be resolved. For un-pairing so follow the steps below.

1. First step is to search for the “Settings App” on your computer.
2. Now select “Devices” from the settings app.
3. Then select “Bluetooth” option and choose “Remove”.
4. Now select “Yes” option to confirm.

After un-pairing the Surface Pen, you will have to hold the power button for six seconds till the light on the Surface Pen glows. After that pair, it again with your computer to solve the issue and hopefully, it will start to work again.

Driver’s reinstallation

It could be possible that the drivers of your Surface Pen are corrupted or are not functioning properly which may lead to your Pen not working. What you can do is reinstall the drivers again on your PC. It is quite easy to do so, go through the steps given below.

1. First step is to look for the “Device Manager” on your PC.
2. Now look for “Surface Pen” on the list of your devices.
3. After that right click on the Surface Pen and select “Uninstall Device” option.
4. Select “Uninstall” from the dialogue box.
5. When the drivers are uninstalled, hit the “Scan for hardware changes” icon to reinstall the drivers.

Graccey Leio is a self-professed security expert; she has been making the people aware of the security threats. Her passion is to write about Cybersecurity, cryptography, malware, social engineering, internet and new media. She  writes for Norton security products at McAfee.com/Activate.