What's new

pen not working properly

wonk

New Member
Hi,
I have a surface pro 5 with a three button pen from the surface pro 3 with latest Win 10. The pen is working properly, when it is new coupled with the device. Every time when I power down the surface and power up again, the pen ist coupled, but nor connected. Pressing the top button will only connect it for two seconds as it is showing the settings display. If I decouple, couple again, it will work fine.
I cleaned the battery contacs, the batteries are ok, althoug the surface app is showing "empty battery". I reinstalled the driver for the pen and the touch screen - doesn't help. What's to do?
Gruss, wonk
 

sharpuser

Administrator
Staff member
Hi, @wonk

The Surface Pen with two side buttons and one top button (three buttons total) is compatible and fully functional with the Surface Pro 3 and the (rare) Surface 3. When using the pen for your Surface Pro 5, the pen tip likely works just fine for drawing, but the pen is only connected via Bluetooth until your Surface driver rejects it. That is because the Surface Pro 5 requires the pen with one side button and no clip. Microsoft produced this pen to be the most backward compatible. I have been using this single side button and no clip pen on my Surface Book 2 since 2017. It is unfortunate that the SP3 pen is not forward compatible with successive Surface models.


PenNoClip.jpg
 
Top